Literary Fiction

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The Ice Palace

Two girls. One unforgettable encounter. A frozen world hiding secrets that words cannot express. Eleven-year-old Siss is confident, outgoing, and well-liked by her classmates. Unn, who has recently arrived in their small Norwegian village to live with her aunt, is her opposite: withdrawn, mysterious, and burdened by a private grief. When the girls spend an evening together, they form an intense connection that neither can fully understand. But the following day, Unn disappears after venturing into a spectacular frozen waterfall known as the Ice Palace—a labyrinth of shimmering chambers sculpted by winter itself. As the village searches for Unn, Siss struggles with the loss of a friendship that had barely begun. Unable to explain what passed between them, she withdraws into silence, carrying Unn’s memory like a secret of her own. With hauntingly beautiful prose, Tarjei Vesaas transforms the Norwegian winter landscape into a reflection of loneliness, grief, and the mysteries of human connection. The Ice Palace is a quiet, deeply moving novel about childhood, loss, and the invisible bonds that can change us forever. It won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1964.

The Book of I

In the year 825, a Viking raid leaves a remote Scottish island littered with the dead. Only three unlikely survivors remain: Martin, a young monk who escaped the massacre; Una, a beekeeper and mead maker freed from her abusive husband by the violence; and Grimur, an ageing Viking who survives being buried alive by his own companions. Stranded together on an island where trust seems impossible, the three begin building an unexpected life. Martin clings to his Christian faith, Una finds freedom in the rhythms of nature, and Grimur discovers that peace may offer something the battlefield never could. But can a fragile community survive when its members come from opposing worlds—and when the past refuses to stay buried? Set against the wild beauty of the Scottish coast, The Book of I blends brutal history with irreverent humour and surprising tenderness. David Greig explores faith, guilt, redemption, and the possibility of finding family in the most unlikely places. It is a story about what remains after destruction—and whether people who once stood on opposite sides can learn to live together.

United Kingdom 2025

The Original

A painting is burned to ashes. Years later, it mysteriously returns. And in a crumbling English country house, nothing—and no one—is quite what they seem. Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick has spent most of her life as an unwanted guest in her wealthy uncle’s household. An outsider with a talent for copying paintings, she secretly turns her unusual skill into a way to earn money and imagine a life beyond the estate. But when her cousin Charles, presumed dead after disappearing at sea, suddenly returns, the family is thrown into turmoil. Some believe he is their long-lost relative; others suspect an impostor hoping to claim the family fortune. As Grace becomes entangled in the mystery, her own secrets threaten to surface. In a world where appearances can deceive and even love involves a kind of imitation, she must decide whom to trust—and who she wants to become. Atmospheric, witty, and full of Victorian intrigue, The Original explores the blurred boundaries between authenticity and deception, asking what makes a person truly original.

United Kingdom 2025

Happy Land

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

In Happy Land, Dolen Perkins-Valdez uncovers a remarkable chapter of African American history through the story of a family whose identity is deeply rooted in the legacy of a forgotten kingdom. Nikki Berry has been estranged from her grandmother, Mother Rita, for years. When her grandmother unexpectedly summons her to the mountains of western North Carolina, Nikki hopes to understand the family conflict that has separated generations. Instead, she discovers a story that transforms her understanding of her ancestry: her great-great-great-grandmother, Luella, was the queen of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a real community established by formerly enslaved people after the American Civil War. As Nikki learns more about the kingdom and the lives of those who built it, she discovers how her ancestors created a place of independence and belonging in a society that continued to deny Black Americans equality. But the family’s connection to the land faces a new threat when outside interests seek to take it away. Nikki must confront both the secrets that have shaped her family and the responsibility of protecting its inheritance. Moving between Nikki’s present-day struggles and Luella’s nineteenth-century experiences, Perkins-Valdez weaves together two generations of women whose lives are shaped by the pursuit of freedom, dignity, and self-determination. The novel explores the importance of ancestral memory, the lasting consequences of racial injustice, and the deep connection between land and identity. Inspired by the historical Kingdom of the Happy Land, the novel celebrates the courage of people who dared to imagine a different future and asks what it means to preserve a legacy for generations to come.

United States 2025

Gulf

Set across the Arabian Gulf, Gulf follows five women from different backgrounds whose lives intersect in a region shaped by gender inequality, political conflict, economic disparity, and cultural divides. Dounia, a young Saudi woman, struggles with the restrictions of married life and the prospect of raising a daughter in a society where women’s freedom is limited. Flora, a Filipina domestic worker, leaves her surviving child behind after a devastating natural disaster forces her to seek work abroad. In Syria, Zeinah is pushed into marriage with an ISIS fighter, while Justine, an American museum curator in Abu Dhabi, confronts the contradictions between her progressive ideals and her own complicity in unequal power structures. Meanwhile, Eskedare, an Ethiopian teenager, fights to escape the circumstances that threaten to define her future. Through these interconnected stories, Ogrodnik explores the ways women navigate oppression, displacement, and moral compromise. Gulf is a powerful examination of survival, rebellion, and the struggle for agency in a world shaped by unequal power.

Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates 2025

Necessary Fiction

Necessary Fiction

Eloghosa Osunde

In Lagos, a vibrant cast of queer Nigerians navigate love, desire, family expectations, and the courage to live on their own terms. From artists and lovers to parents and friends, their lives intertwine as they confront the stories they have constructed to survive in a society that often refuses to accept them as they are. Through intimate relationships, unexpected connections, and moments of radical self-discovery, Eloghosa Osunde explores what it means to create a family beyond blood ties and to claim the freedom to define oneself. Tender, defiant, and deeply human, Necessary Fiction is a celebration of chosen family, queer identity, and the complicated fictions we sometimes need to survive.

Where You Go, I Will Go

Where You Go, I Will Go

Christina Fonthes

Two women, separated by a generation, struggle to reconcile love, family expectations, and the desire to live freely. In 1980s Kinshasa, teenage Mira falls in love with a poor singer, defying her ambitious family and setting in motion events that will shape her future across continents. Two decades later, in London, her daughter Bijoux hides her relationship with a woman behind the obedient persona expected of her by her strict Pentecostal aunt. As their stories intertwine, both women must confront inherited wounds, cultural traditions, and the meaning of home. Tender and emotionally powerful, this intergenerational family saga explores queer love, migration, motherhood, and the courage to break free from the past.

Congo, Democratic Republic 2025

Helen of Nowhere

Helen of Nowhere

Makenna Goodman

A disgraced English professor, separated from his wife and forced out of his job, visits an idyllic country house for sale, hoping to begin again. The realtor introduces him to the mysterious Helen, the former owner who built a life close to nature and outside conventional expectations. As the evening unfolds, the viewing becomes a surreal journey through the professor’s resentments, regrets, and carefully constructed sense of self. Philosophical, darkly humorous, and formally inventive, Helen of Nowhere questions the fantasies we build around happiness, freedom, and starting over—and what we must surrender to find a more meaningful life.

United States 2025

Ordinary Saints

Ordinary Saints

Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

Jay has built a new life in London with her girlfriend, keeping her complicated past at a safe distance. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in an accident, may be declared a Catholic saint, she is forced to confront the family and faith she left behind. Both tender and sharply funny, this novel explores queer identity, grief, and the complicated legacy of the Catholic Church in Ireland, asking who gets to decide how a life is remembered.

The Others

As the Berlin Wall teeters on the brink of collapse in 1989, three young people from different worlds find their lives unexpectedly intertwined. Armando, a factory worker from Mozambique; Lolita, a medical student from India; and Theo, an aspiring writer from East Germany, navigate love, secrets, and political uncertainty as the world around them transforms. Through their intertwined stories, Sheena Kalayil explores the often-overlooked lives of migrants and foreign workers caught between cultures, borders, and competing visions of freedom.

Rosa Mistika

Euphrase Kezilahabi

In a rural Tanzanian village, young Rosa grows up in a family where the home offers little protection from cruelty. Her father’s alcoholism and abuse cast a shadow over Rosa and her four younger sisters, while the expectations placed on girls leave them few ways to escape. When Rosa earns a place at a boarding school away from home, she hopes for a fresh start. Instead, she enters a world where sexual desire, manipulation, and unequal power complicate her search for independence. As she learns to navigate the double standards imposed on women, her attempts to gain control over her own life come at a devastating cost. First published in 1971, this groundbreaking novel challenged social and religious conventions in Tanzania, confronting domestic violence, sexual coercion, and women’s autonomy with striking directness.

Fundamentally

Nussaibah Younis

Can you save someone else when you’re still trying to save yourself? When Nadia Amin, a sharp-witted academic, loses both her lover and her mother’s approval, she escapes to Iraq to lead a UN rehabilitation programme for women affiliated with ISIS. Armed with theories about deradicalisation and an uncertain sense of purpose, Nadia soon discovers that international aid is far messier than academic research suggests. Then she meets Sara, a rebellious young Londoner who joined ISIS at fifteen. Despite their radically different experiences, the two women recognise something of themselves in each other, forming an unlikely friendship that challenges Nadia’s assumptions about guilt, faith, and redemption. When Sara reveals a devastating secret, Nadia must confront the limits of her own idealism. Darkly funny and deeply compassionate, Fundamentally explores radicalisation, cultural identity, and the complicated human need to belong.

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