Society & Class

Examinations of class, power, and the structures we live within.

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Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad

Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad

In this remarkable and darkly humorous short story collection, Damilare Kuku takes us deep into the heart of modern Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, and the lives of a collection of audacious women who cope with romantic difficulties by brilliantly turning the tables on the men who wrong them. One hardworking married woman calmly threatens sharp-edged revenge on her lazy, hypocritical husband. Another skillfully protects her own business interests by shielding her pastor-husband from allegations of cheating that may or may not be true. A group of wealthy wives deceived by their husbands join forces in a WhatsApp support group called the Virtuous Wives Guild. And a discerning dater fed up with Nigerian men makes a vow to date only oyibos before discovering that white men can act just as badly. A bestseller in Damilare Kuku’s native Nigeria, Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad is a raunchy, satisfying, and outrageous example of contemporary African fiction steeped in the chaos and allure of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city. It’s also a love letter to Nigerian women: the women in these stories may be confronted at every turn with liars, scammers, and cheaters in their quests for love, but they always figure out how to come out victorious.

Second Chance Convenience Store

Second Chance Convenience Store

The Second Chance Convenience Store follows Dokgo, a homeless man living near Seoul Station who has lost his memory and struggles to make sense of his past. His life begins to change after he finds and returns a wallet belonging to Mrs Yeom, a retired teacher who owns a small convenience store. Grateful for his honesty, she offers him food and eventually gives him a job at her shop. As Dokgo becomes part of the neighbourhood, his quiet kindness begins to transform the lives of customers and colleagues dealing with loneliness, family conflict, and personal disappointment. Yet his mysterious past continues to cast a shadow over his new beginning. Through the everyday encounters taking place inside the store, Kim explores social isolation, economic insecurity, and the importance of community. The novel celebrates compassion and suggests that small acts of kindness can help people recover their dignity and rebuild their lives.

Guardian and a Thief

Guardian and a Thief

Set in a near-future Kolkata devastated by extreme heat and environmental crisis, A Guardian and a Thief follows two families whose lives become entangled through desperation and difficult moral choices. Ma, a mother determined to secure a future for her young daughter and elderly father, is preparing to leave India for the United States. Her plans are threatened when a young thief steals the documents her family needs to emigrate. The thief, meanwhile, is struggling to feed his own child in a city where poverty and climate catastrophe have made survival increasingly difficult. As their stories unfold over a single week, Majumdar explores the boundaries between right and wrong when people are pushed to desperate extremes. The novel examines inequality, parenthood, migration, and the moral compromises people make when protecting their families becomes a matter of survival.

Exit Zero

Marie-Helene Bertino

Exit Zero is a collection of twelve surreal and imaginative short stories that explore the strange, often unsettling experiences of ordinary people. Blending magical realism, dark humour, and reflections on mortality, Marie-Helene Bertino creates worlds where the boundaries between everyday life and the extraordinary begin to dissolve. In the title story, Jo returns to her estranged father’s home after his death and discovers that she has inherited an unexpected companion: a unicorn living in the backyard. Elsewhere, former lovers fall mysteriously from the sky, gardens become sites of communication between the living and the dead, and familiar objects take on uncanny significance. Beneath the collection’s fantastical premises lies a thoughtful exploration of loneliness, family relationships, grief, and the difficulty of navigating an unpredictable world. Bertino’s stories invite readers to look beyond the apparent absurdity of everyday existence and consider the connections, losses, and moments of wonder that give life meaning.

United States 2025

Heart Lamp

Heart Lamp is a collection of twelve short stories portraying the lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Through intimate family dramas, everyday conflicts, and moments of dark humor, Banu Mushtaq explores the effects of patriarchy, religious authority, caste discrimination, and social expectations on women’s lives. Her characters include mothers struggling to protect their children, girls confronting restrictive traditions, and women navigating relationships shaped by unequal power. Written with wit, compassion, and sharp social observation, the stories reveal both the injustices embedded in family and community life and the resilience of those who challenge them. Originally written in Kannada over more than three decades, the collection offers a nuanced portrait of contemporary Indian society. It won the 2025 International Booker Prize in Deepa Bhasthi’s English translation.

Perfection

Vincenzo Latronico

In Perfection, Anna and Tom are a young creative couple living in Berlin, where they enjoy a carefully curated lifestyle of remote work, minimalist interiors, cultural experiences, and seemingly effortless happiness. Surrounded by the aesthetics of contemporary urban life, they appear to have achieved the freedom and fulfillment they desire. Yet beneath their polished routines lies a growing sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction. Through precise, detached prose, Vincenzo Latronico examines the contradictions of digital nomadism, gentrification, consumer culture, and the pursuit of an ideal life shaped by social media. The novel offers a sharp portrait of a generation caught between the desire for authenticity and the pressure to make every aspect of life look perfect.

The Silver Fish

The Silver Fish

American journalist Danielle “Dani” Moreau arrives in Accra, Ghana, hoping to revive her career by investigating corruption in the country’s oil industry. Still reeling from a personal tragedy, she expects to uncover a conventional political scandal. Instead, an encounter with James Aidoo, the idealistic son of a prominent Ghanaian politician, draws her into a far more dangerous story. Dani discovers a covert struggle between American and Chinese intelligence agencies over control of the underwater fibre-optic cables that carry the world’s digital communications. As she investigates, she encounters double agents, corrupt officials, and operatives with violent pasts. What begins as a journalistic investigation becomes a fight for survival, with the consequences reaching far beyond Ghana’s borders. Set against the bustling streets and political complexities of West Africa, The Silver Fish combines espionage with contemporary geopolitical intrigue. Connor Martin explores the hidden infrastructure of global power, examining how technology, intelligence, and competing national interests shape the modern world—and the personal cost of pursuing the truth.

Ghana United States 2026

A Stranger in Corfu

A Stranger in Corfu

On the Greek island of Vidos, just off the coast of Corfu, a secluded community of former MI6 officers lives in enforced retirement. These men and women have been exiled from the intelligence service—some too damaged by their past, others too compromised to be trusted. Surrounded by the beauty of the Ionian Sea, they attempt to settle old grudges, rekindle lost relationships, and forget the dangerous lives they once led. But their fragile peace collapses when one of the residents is found dead. As suspicion spreads through the community, former allies begin questioning one another, and buried secrets from decades of espionage threaten to surface. The island becomes a trap for people who have spent their lives deceiving others, where old betrayals carry deadly consequences and nobody’s version of the past can be trusted. Inspired by the hidden history of British intelligence, A Stranger in Corfu combines an atmospheric Mediterranean setting with the moral ambiguity of Cold War espionage. Alex Preston explores loyalty, betrayal, and the difficulty of escaping one’s past, asking what remains of people whose entire lives have been built around secrets.

Greece United Kingdom 2026

Spies and Other Gods

Spies and Other Gods

The head of British Intelligence, Sir William Rentoul, is only six months away from retirement when an anonymous complaint threatens to expose a disastrous covert operation. Already struggling with an increasingly unreliable memory, he must now contend with parliamentary scrutiny, a trail of assassinations, and secrets that could bring the intelligence establishment to its knees. Enter Aphra McQueen, a sharp and unconventional parliamentary researcher tasked with investigating the complaint. Her inquiry leads her into a covert operation involving CASPIAN, an elusive assassin responsible for killing Iranian dissidents across Europe. As the investigation unfolds, Aphra discovers that the case is far more complicated than it first appears—and that she herself may be concealing crucial information. With intelligence agencies scrambling to contain the fallout, an unsuspecting British-Syrian dentist becomes entangled in a dangerous international conspiracy. Told in part through the sardonic voice of an almost omniscient narrator known as the “spirit of spying,” Spies and Other Gods combines espionage, dark humour, and institutional satire. James Wolff examines the uneasy relationship between secrecy and accountability, revealing the human weaknesses and moral compromises behind the machinery of intelligence.

United Kingdom 2026

London Station

David McCloskey

London becomes a battleground when the long-standing alliance between American and British intelligence begins to unravel. A new CIA director arrives determined to disrupt the agency and rethink its relationship with MI6. When the veteran chief of the CIA’s London Station is forced out, he makes an extraordinary decision: to work for the British instead. His betrayal is uncovered by his successor, Artemis Aphrodite Procter, who suddenly finds herself caught between a treacherous former superior and an increasingly ruthless leadership back in Washington. As intelligence sources begin dying and the identities of covert agents are exposed, Procter and her team must uncover who is leaking secrets—and why. Their investigation draws them into a dangerous world of private intelligence companies, technological surveillance, and competing agendas, where allies become adversaries and loyalty can be fatal. In this fifth novel featuring Artemis Procter, David McCloskey explores the fragile relationship between intelligence agencies and the political forces that shape their work. Combining intricate espionage operations with a story of institutional betrayal, London Station asks what happens when serving your country means disobeying the people who claim to represent it.

United Kingdom United States 2026

Small Comfort

Money can buy comfort, security, and freedom—but what happens when it begins to determine the value of our relationships? In Small Comfort, Ia Genberg brings together five interconnected stories populated by people whose lives are shaped by money, ambition, and self-deception. A former child star has become a struggling thief; an actor is hired to deliver a speech at a stranger’s wedding; and an estranged couple pretends to be happily married to secure an inheritance. Beneath these seemingly absurd situations lie uncomfortable questions about what people owe one another and what they are willing to sacrifice for financial gain. With sharp humour and an unflinching eye for human weakness, Genberg reveals how economic value seeps into our most intimate relationships, influencing the way we love, judge, and measure ourselves. Witty, surprising, and quietly unsettling, Small Comfort explores the strange bargains we make in pursuit of security and happiness. The English translation was longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize.

Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)

Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)

Moving between Lahore, London, Paris, and Beijing, Tariq Ali’s Night of the Golden Butterfly explores friendship, love, political disillusionment, and the changing identity of Pakistan. The story follows Dara, a writer living in London, who is asked by his old friend Mohammed Aflatun—nicknamed Plato, an eccentric and gifted painter—to write the story of his life. As Dara reconnects with people from his past, old romances and long-buried memories resurface, revealing the complicated relationships that bind their lives together. Alongside this contemporary narrative, the novel reaches back into Chinese-Muslim history through the family of Jindie, Dara’s first love. Blending satire, personal recollection, and historical storytelling, Ali examines the tensions between East and West, the effects of political power and religious fundamentalism, and the struggles of a society confronting its own contradictions. The novel is the fifth and final volume of The Islam Quintet.

About this theme

Books: 140
Countries: 54

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Dominican Republic