Family & Heritage

Sagas of lineage, tradition, and the ties that bind generations.

All countries Afghanistan Argentina Armenia Australia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Canada Central African Republic Chile China Colombia Croatia Cuba Djibouti Dominican Republic Egypt Ethiopia France Georgia Germany Hungary India Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Japan Lebanon Libya Mexico Netherlands Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Poland Russia Singapore South Africa South Korea Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Türkiye United Kingdom United States Zambia

Newest first Oldest first

Home Fire is a contemporary reimagining of Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy Antigone, exploring family loyalty, political power, and the struggles of British Muslims to reconcile cultural identity with national belonging. The novel follows Isma Pasha, who has spent years caring for her younger twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz, after their mother’s death. When Isma finally leaves London to pursue her studies in the United States, she remains deeply concerned about her siblings. Parvaiz, haunted by the legacy of his deceased jihadist father, travels to Syria to join ISIS, only to discover that he has made a devastating mistake. Desperate to bring her brother home, Aneeka becomes involved with Eamonn Lone, the son of a powerful British politician whose hard-line policies threaten her family’s future. As personal relationships become entangled with national security and political ambition, Shamsie examines the painful consequences of divided loyalties. The novel explores how governments define belonging, whose grief is considered legitimate, and what people are willing to sacrifice for those they love. Home Fire won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

United Kingdom 2017

Green Island

Shawna Yang Ryan

Green Island follows several generations of a Taiwanese family whose lives are transformed by political repression and the legacy of the February 28 Incident of 1947. The story begins when Dr. Tsai, a young physician, is arrested by Chinese Nationalist authorities after the uprising in Taiwan. His eventual return to his family does not restore their former life; instead, fear, suspicion, and silence become part of their everyday existence. Years later, his youngest daughter grows up carrying the emotional consequences of her father’s experiences and eventually confronts difficult choices of her own. Moving between Taiwan and the United States, the novel examines how political violence enters private life and shapes family relationships across generations. It explores survival, complicity, memory, and the moral compromises people make to protect those they love.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Set in the mountains of Yunnan, China, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane follows Li-yan, a young woman from the Akha ethnic community whose life is shaped by centuries-old traditions surrounding tea cultivation, marriage, and family. When Li-yan gives birth to a daughter outside marriage, she makes the painful decision to leave her baby near an orphanage rather than follow a tradition that threatens the child’s life. The girl, Haley, is adopted by an American family and grows up far from her biological roots. As the years pass, both mother and daughter struggle with questions about their identities and origins. Connected by their shared heritage and the ancient tea trade, their stories explore motherhood, cultural change, adoption, and the enduring bonds between generations.

A Girl Returned

A Girl Returned

Donatella Di Pietrantonio

A Girl Returned follows a thirteen-year-old girl who is suddenly sent back to the family she barely remembers after being raised by a couple she believed were her parents. Without explanation, she finds herself living with her biological family in a crowded apartment in a poor rural community in southern Italy. Surrounded by unfamiliar siblings and a mother who feels like a stranger, she struggles to understand why she was given away and why she has now been returned. As she adjusts to her new circumstances, the girl develops a complicated relationship with her younger sister, Adriana, whose boldness and resourcefulness offer both companionship and conflict. Through the protagonist’s perspective, Donatella Di Pietrantonio explores the emotional consequences of abandonment, the divisions between social classes, and the meaning of motherhood and belonging. Written in a restrained, powerful style, the novel captures the vulnerability of adolescence and the lasting impact of secrets within families. It asks whether family is defined by blood, love, or the people who choose to stay.

We Were the Lucky Ones

We Were the Lucky Ones

We Were the Lucky Ones is a historical novel inspired by the true story of the Kurc family, a Polish Jewish family separated by the Second World War. When Nazi Germany invades Poland, the family members are scattered across continents, each facing different dangers as they struggle to survive the Holocaust. From forced labor camps and occupied cities to resistance movements and refugee journeys, their experiences reveal the extraordinary lengths people will go to protect themselves and reunite with those they love. Despite persecution, loss, and uncertainty, the Kurcs maintain hope that they will one day find one another again. Drawing on her own family history, Georgia Hunter explores resilience, sacrifice, and the enduring bonds of family in the face of unimaginable adversity. The novel offers a moving portrait of survival and the determination to preserve love and humanity during one of history’s darkest periods.

At the Breakfast Table

At the Breakfast Table

On Büyükada, an island off Istanbul, relatives gather in the summer of 2017 to celebrate the hundredth birthday of Şirin Saka, a celebrated artist whose long life has spanned nearly a century of political and cultural change. What should be a joyful family occasion soon becomes an encounter with the past, as the younger generations begin to question the silences that have shaped their lives. Şirin’s grandchildren, Nur and Fikret, and her great-granddaughter, Selin, know that something painful lies beneath the family’s carefully maintained image. Hoping to uncover the truth, they invite Burak, a family friend and investigative journalist, to interview Şirin. But the elderly artist has spent decades concealing a history that reaches beyond her personal life into the suppressed memories of the country itself. Told through four perspectives, At the Breakfast Table explores the inheritance of family secrets, the psychological cost of silence, and the courage required to confront uncomfortable truths. Defne Suman weaves together intimate family drama and Turkey’s complicated history in a novel about memory, identity, and the possibility of breaking free from the past.

The Storyteller's Secret

The Storyteller's Secret

The Storyteller’s Secret follows Jaya, an Indian American journalist whose personal life begins to unravel after she experiences a painful miscarriage and the breakdown of her marriage. Seeking answers and a fresh perspective, she travels to India to reconnect with her family’s roots. There, she meets Ravi, her grandmother’s former servant, who shares the story of Amisha, Jaya’s grandmother, and the difficult choices that shaped her life in a small Indian village during the 1930s. Amisha was a gifted storyteller whose aspirations extended beyond the traditional roles available to women, but her ambitions were constrained by social expectations and a marriage that offered little freedom. As Jaya uncovers her grandmother’s past, she begins to understand her own struggles differently. Badani explores family secrets, women’s independence, cultural traditions, and the healing power of understanding previous generations.

Salt Houses

Salt Houses follows several generations of the Palestinian Yacoub family as political upheaval repeatedly forces them to leave their homes and rebuild their lives elsewhere. Beginning in Nablus in the 1960s, the story traces the family’s experiences through the Six-Day War, the displacement caused by regional conflicts, and the subsequent lives of their descendants across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Each generation inherits a complicated relationship with Palestine, balancing memories of a lost homeland with the practical demands of creating a future in unfamiliar places. As family members develop different ideas about belonging, identity, and home, their relationships are shaped by both shared history and personal choices. Alyan explores the intergenerational effects of displacement, revealing how exile can become part of family identity even for those who have never experienced their ancestral homeland themselves.

Why Do You Dance When You Walk

Why Do You Dance When You Walk

Abdourahman A. Waberi

One morning in Paris, eight-year-old Béa asks her father, Aden, a deceptively simple question: “Papa, why do you dance when you walk?” Her curiosity about his unusual gait prompts him to revisit the childhood experiences that shaped his life, taking readers from contemporary France to Djibouti during the years leading up to independence. Growing up in a poor neighbourhood marked by dust, heat, and hardship, Aden was a bright but physically vulnerable child. After contracting polio at the age of seven, he was left with a weakened leg that made him stand out among his peers. His childhood becomes a story of illness, loneliness, and resilience, shaped by his complicated relationship with his mother, his beloved grandmother, and the colourful characters who inhabit his neighbourhood. Through Aden’s memories, Waberi evokes a world on the threshold of political independence while exploring the intimate realities of growing up in a society shaped by colonialism. The novel is also a meditation on parenthood: as Aden answers his daughter’s questions, he reflects on how the wounds of childhood influence the stories we tell our own children. Poetic and deeply personal, this short novel explores disability, family, memory, and the transformative power of storytelling. It asks how we learn to live with our scars—and how even the most difficult experiences can become part of the dance of being alive.

The Old Drift

Namwali Serpell

Beginning in 1904, near the magnificent Victoria Falls, The Old Drift follows three families whose lives become entangled across more than a century of Zambian history. It begins with a seemingly minor incident involving Percy M. Clark, a British settler, an Italian hotelier, and an African busboy—a mistake whose consequences ripple through generations. As the story unfolds, the families experience colonial rule, the struggle for independence, political upheaval, and the uncertainties of a rapidly changing modern world. Their histories are filled with forbidden love, betrayals, extraordinary ambitions, and unexpected connections. Serpell combines historical fiction with magical realism, folklore, romance, and science fiction, even imagining a future shaped by technological innovation and surveillance. The narrative itself is unconventional, narrated in part by a collective chorus of mosquitoes observing humanity’s follies. Ambitious, inventive, and richly layered, The Old Drift is both a multigenerational family saga and a meditation on how the past continues to shape the future of a nation. Through its interwoven lives, the novel explores the lasting legacies of colonialism, the complexity of national identity, and the unintended consequences of human actions.

Where Reasons End

Where Reasons End

Where Reasons End is an intimate, deeply moving novel about a mother’s grief following the death of her teenage son, Nikolai. Unable to accept his absence, the narrator imagines a series of conversations with him in a world suspended between life and death. Through their exchanges, mother and son revisit memories, question language, discuss literature, and reflect on the complexities of their relationship. Rather than offering simple explanations for an unbearable loss, Yiyun Li explores the limits of understanding and the ways words can both connect people and fail to express what matters most. Their conversations move between tenderness, humour, frustration, and sorrow, revealing the ordinary details that make a relationship unique. Written in the aftermath of the author’s own loss, the novel blurs the boundaries between fiction and personal experience. It is a profound meditation on motherhood, grief, memory, and the enduring bond between a parent and a child.

The House of Broken Angels

The House of Broken Angels

Luis Alberto Urrea

In The House of Broken Angels, Luis Alberto Urrea tells the story of the De La Cruz family as they gather in San Diego to celebrate the seventy-first birthday of patriarch Big Angel and the final days of their beloved matriarch, Mamá América. Over one emotionally charged weekend, siblings, children, grandchildren, and extended relatives come together, bringing unresolved conflicts, old memories, and complicated relationships to the surface. As Big Angel reflects on his life, he confronts his Mexican heritage, his experiences as an immigrant, and the legacy he will leave behind. Blending humor, grief, and tenderness, Urrea portrays the complexities of Mexican American identity and the bonds that hold families together across generations. The novel celebrates the resilience of immigrant communities while exploring mortality, belonging, cultural heritage, and the enduring power of family love.

United States 2019

About this theme

Books: 105
Countries: 49

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Central African Republic

Dominican Republic