Coming of Age

Stories of growing up, first experiences, and transformation.

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Paradise

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Paradise follows Yusuf, a twelve-year-old boy growing up in East Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. When his father falls into debt, Yusuf is handed over to Aziz, a wealthy merchant, as repayment. Taken away from his family, Yusuf begins working for the merchant and gradually discovers a world shaped by trade, cultural exchange, religious traditions, and colonial expansion. His journeys through towns and trading routes expose him to the inequalities and tensions of a society on the brink of profound change. As Yusuf grows older, he struggles to understand his place in a world where freedom is limited by economic dependence, social hierarchies, and the ambitions of powerful men. Drawing on East African history and the region’s diverse cultural influences, Gurnah explores exploitation, displacement, desire, and the loss of innocence. The novel’s title evokes a promised paradise that remains elusive, revealing the gap between the beauty of the natural world and the harsh realities of human power and domination.

First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood

First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood

Growing up in 1960s and 1970s Bombay, Thrity Umrigar navigates the contradictions of childhood in a middle-class Parsi family. Attending a Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu city, she becomes increasingly aware of the cultural, religious, and economic divisions that shape the world around her. At home, she experiences both the warmth of her father’s affection and the painful consequences of her mother’s harsh discipline. As she grows older, Umrigar begins questioning the expectations imposed on her and confronting the complicated truths of her family. Through intimate memories of childhood, adolescence, and her eventual departure for America at twenty-one, she reflects on identity, belonging, family secrets, and the inequalities of Indian society. First Darling of the Morning is a deeply personal memoir about growing up between cultures and finding the courage to imagine a life beyond the boundaries of one’s upbringing.

Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld is an American novelist and short-story writer born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975. She studied English at Stanford University and later attended the creative writing program at the University of Iowa. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a journalist and editor. Sittenfeld made her literary debut with Prep (2005), a coming-of-age novel about a middle-class teenager navigating the social hierarchies of an elite American boarding school. The book became a bestseller and established her reputation for perceptive portrayals of class, identity, ambition, and the complexities of adolescence. Her subsequent novels include American Wife (2008), a fictionalized account inspired by former First Lady Laura Bush; Sisterland (2013); Eligible (2016), a contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; and Rodham (2020), an alternative-history novel imagining a different life for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sittenfeld has also published the short-story collections You Think It, I’ll Say It (2018) and Help Yourself (2025). Her fiction often examines social expectations, relationships, privilege, and the private thoughts people conceal behind their public identities. Her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

United States 2005

How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone

How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone

Saša Stanišić

Set during the Bosnian War and its aftermath, How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone follows Aleksandar Krsmanović, a young boy growing up in the small Bosnian town of Višegrad. When war destroys the familiar world of his childhood, Aleksandar is forced to leave his home and seek refuge in Germany. Through his vivid imagination, memories, and storytelling, he attempts to make sense of violence, displacement, and the loss of people and places he once knew. Blending humour, fantasy, and painful recollection, the novel captures the way a child experiences war without fully understanding its political and historical complexities. As Aleksandar grows older, storytelling becomes a way to preserve his past and reconnect with a homeland that has been irrevocably changed. Saša Stanišić’s novel explores memory, exile, identity, and the fragile boundary between lived experience and imagination.

Bosnia and Herzegovina 2009

Skippy Dies

Skippy Dies begins with a shocking event at Seabrook College, a prestigious Catholic boarding school in Dublin: fourteen-year-old Daniel “Skippy” Juster collapses and dies in a doughnut shop. His death sets off a chain of revelations that expose the hidden struggles of the students and adults around him. Before this tragedy, Skippy had been falling in love with Lori, a girl from a neighboring school, while trying to navigate adolescence, bullying, and the pressures of school life. His roommate, Ruprecht Van Doren, a brilliant but socially awkward teenager obsessed with theoretical physics, becomes increasingly determined to understand what happened to his friend. Meanwhile, the school’s teachers wrestle with their own disappointments, secrets, and moral failures. Combining dark comedy, heartbreak, and social satire, Murray’s novel explores teenage loneliness, first love, addiction, institutional hypocrisy, and the difficulties of growing up. Beneath its humorous surface lies a moving portrait of young people searching for connection in a world that often fails to protect them.

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend follows Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo, known as Lila, two intelligent and ambitious girls growing up in a poor neighborhood of Naples in the 1950s. Despite their contrasting personalities, they develop a complex friendship shaped by admiration, rivalry, jealousy, and affection. As they navigate childhood and adolescence, both confront the limitations imposed by poverty, gender expectations, and a society marked by violence and rigid social hierarchies. While Elena continues her education, Lila’s opportunities are increasingly restricted, creating a tension that follows them as their lives take different directions. Through their evolving relationship, Ferrante explores female friendship, ambition, identity, and the transformative power of education. The novel is the first installment of the Neapolitan series, offering an intimate portrait of growing up and discovering oneself in a changing Italy.

The Bottom of the Jar

The Bottom of the Jar

Abdellatif Laâbi

Set in Fez during the 1950s, as Morocco struggles to free itself from French colonial rule, The Bottom of the Jar is a richly textured portrait of childhood, family, and a city on the threshold of transformation. Through the eyes of a young boy discovering the world around him, Abdellatif Laâbi evokes the bustling streets of the old medina, the colourful characters who inhabit them, and the intimate dramas unfolding behind closed doors. At the centre of this world is the boy’s family: a generous father, a formidable mother whose passionate prayers and sharp wit fill their home, and an eccentric uncle whose love of hashish and storytelling turns him into a kind of Homer after dark. Humorous, tender, and occasionally heartbreaking, the novel captures the contradictions of a society caught between inherited traditions and the promise of independence. Drawing on the author’s own childhood, it celebrates the imagination and resilience of ordinary people while exploring how political change reshapes private lives.

Written in Black

Written in Black

Set in Brunei on the island of Borneo, Written in Black is a darkly humorous coming-of-age novel following ten-year-old Jonathan Lee, a boy from a Chinese family navigating grief, family conflict, and the uncertainties of childhood. As he prepares to attend his grandfather’s funeral, Jonathan is already struggling with his mother’s departure for Australia and his older brother’s expulsion from the family home. Frustrated by his father’s anger and desperate to understand what has happened to his family, Jonathan escapes the funeral wake inside an empty coffin. His impulsive decision leads him on an unexpected journey through Brunei, where he encounters teenage delinquents, eccentric strangers, mysterious places, and unfamiliar aspects of the country around him. Along the way, he hopes to find his estranged brother and uncover the truth about his absent mother. Blending comedy, adventure, and moments of sadness, the novel explores childhood vulnerability, family loyalty, and the search for belonging. Jonathan’s journey becomes an opportunity to discover courage and develop a deeper understanding of himself and the complicated adults in his life.

Small Country

Set in Burundi in the early 1990s, Petit pays follows Gabriel, a ten-year-old boy growing up in Bujumbura, the country’s capital. Living with his French father, Rwandan mother, and younger sister, Gabriel enjoys an idyllic childhood filled with adventures with his friends, bicycle rides, and the simple pleasures of everyday life. But as his parents’ relationship begins to unravel, political tensions intensify, and the approaching civil war threatens the peaceful world he has always known. Through Gabriel’s innocent yet increasingly troubled perspective, Gaël Faye portrays the devastating impact of conflict on childhood, family, and belonging. As violence spreads through Burundi and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi unfolds in neighbouring Rwanda, Gabriel is forced to confront his own mixed heritage and the painful realities of a divided society. Blending nostalgia with the brutality of history, the novel explores the loss of innocence, the fragility of home, and the lasting scars of displacement. Inspired by the author’s own experiences, Petit pays is a moving reflection on childhood interrupted by violence and the struggle to preserve one’s identity amid historical upheaval.

Tasting the Sky

Tasting the Sky

Ibtisam Barakat

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood is a memoir recounting Ibtisam Barakat’s childhood during and after the 1967 Six-Day War. Growing up in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Barakat experiences the fear and confusion of war as her family flees their home, leaving behind the familiar world of her early years. Through the eyes of a young girl, she describes the uncertainty of displacement, the separation of families, and the emotional challenges of growing up amid political conflict. Despite the hardship surrounding her, Barakat discovers refuge in language, reading, and education, gradually finding ways to understand and express her experiences. Written in lyrical, accessible prose, the memoir captures how a child makes sense of violence and loss while holding on to curiosity and hope. It offers an intimate perspective on Palestinian history, exploring the relationship between memory, identity, language, and belonging, and demonstrating how storytelling can become a means of survival and self-discovery.

The Idiot

It’s 1995, email is new, and Harvard freshman Selin Karadağ is trying to figure out how language, love, and life actually work. The daughter of Turkish immigrants, she befriends a charismatic Serbian classmate and begins exchanging increasingly mysterious emails with Ivan, an older Hungarian mathematics student. When their ambiguous relationship follows her from university to the Hungarian countryside, Selin finds herself navigating first love, cultural misunderstandings, and the bewildering transition to adulthood. Witty, intellectually curious, and quietly moving, The Idiot captures the awkward beauty of becoming yourself when you have no idea who that person might be. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it is a coming-of-age story for readers who think too much and feel more than they can explain.

United States 2017

The Mourning Bird

The Mourning Bird

Mubanga Kalimamukwento

Set in Zambia during the turbulent 1990s, The Mourning Bird follows eleven-year-old Chimuka and her younger brother, Ali, whose lives are shattered by a series of family tragedies. After their father dies and their mother’s struggle to keep the family together ends in further heartbreak, the siblings are left facing an uncertain future. Rejected by their abusive extended family, they escape to the streets of Lusaka, where survival means navigating poverty, violence, drugs, and police brutality. As Chimuka grows into adolescence, she confronts the limited choices available to vulnerable girls in a society where poverty and gender inequality expose them to exploitation. Meanwhile, Ali becomes increasingly entangled in crime and addiction. Their struggle unfolds against a backdrop of political instability, economic decline, and the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on Zambian families. Unflinching yet deeply compassionate, Kalimamukwento’s debut novel examines childhood, grief, and resilience while revealing the hidden suffering of those living on the margins of society. It is both an intimate story of two siblings fighting to survive and a portrait of a nation grappling with profound social upheaval.

About this theme

Books: 39
Countries: 30

Countries with this theme

Antigua and Barbuda

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Central African Republic