Society & Class

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

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Red Crosses

Sasha Filipenko

Red Crosses tells the story of two people whose lives are shaped by tragedy, memory, and the lasting consequences of political repression. Alexander, a young man devastated by personal loss, moves to Minsk hoping to withdraw from the world. His plans change when he meets his elderly neighbour, Tatiana Alexeyevna, a woman in her nineties whose memory is gradually disappearing because of Alzheimer’s disease. To help herself navigate their apartment building, she marks doors with red crosses. Despite her fading memory, Tatiana vividly recalls the horrors of twentieth-century Soviet history. She tells Alexander about her work during the Second World War, her husband’s capture by enemy forces, and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment in a labour camp under Stalin’s regime. As her story unfolds, Alexander becomes increasingly invested in preserving her memories before they disappear. Through their unlikely friendship, Filipenko explores the relationship between personal grief and collective history. The novel examines political persecution, historical amnesia, and the importance of bearing witness to the past, suggesting that remembering those who suffered is an essential act of resistance.

Offended Sensibilities

Offended Sensibilities

Offended Sensibilities is a darkly comic, neo-noir novel set in a provincial Russian town where a series of sudden deaths among local officials exposes a deeply dysfunctional system. The investigation unfolds against the backdrop of legislation criminalising forms of expression deemed offensive to religious believers. As the characters navigate corruption, political manoeuvring, religious nationalism, and personal hypocrisy, the line between justice and absurdity becomes increasingly blurred. Ganieva uses the mystery to examine a society in which public morality can become a tool of political control and where almost everyone has something to hide. Combining elements of crime fiction and political satire, the novel offers a sharp critique of contemporary Russian institutions and the contradictions between official values and private behaviour.

The Startup Wife

The Startup Wife

The Startup Wife follows Asha Ray, a brilliant computer scientist who leaves her academic career to build a technology startup with her husband, Cyrus Jones, and their friend Jules. Their company develops an app that offers users personalised rituals and a sense of connection in an increasingly secular world. When the platform becomes a sensation, Cyrus’s charisma turns him into the public face of the business, while Asha’s technical contribution and intellectual authority are gradually overshadowed. As the company grows, the imbalance between their professional recognition and personal responsibilities begins to threaten both their marriage and Asha’s sense of self. Anam combines satire and contemporary fiction to examine gender inequality, entrepreneurial ambition, technology, and the cult of charismatic leadership. The novel questions who receives credit for innovation and how power can shift within relationships when professional success becomes inseparable from public image.

Bangladesh 2021

Secret Keeper of Jaipur

Secret Keeper of Jaipur

Set in Jaipur in 1969, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur follows Malik, a young man who returns to the city where he grew up to begin an apprenticeship at the royal palace. Under the guidance of Lakshmi, the former henna artist who has become a respected figure in the community, Malik hopes to build a promising future. His work brings him into contact with the wealthy and influential people overseeing the construction of a modern cinema. When the cinema’s balcony collapses on opening night, the resulting tragedy exposes corruption, concealed interests, and the unequal distribution of power. Suspecting that the disaster was not simply an accident, Malik begins investigating the truth, putting himself at risk as he challenges those determined to protect their reputations. Joshi examines social inequality, ambition, and the influence of wealth and privilege in a rapidly changing India.

How Beautiful We Were

How Beautiful We Were

Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, How Beautiful We Were follows a community struggling against the devastating consequences of an American oil company’s operations on its land. Pollution has contaminated the water, children are dying, and promises of compensation and environmental protection remain unfulfilled. Told through multiple perspectives across several decades, the novel traces the villagers’ resistance, from their initial protests to a younger generation’s increasingly radical efforts to demand justice. At its heart is Thula, a determined young woman whose education and political awakening inspire her to challenge corporate power and neocolonial exploitation. Through this multigenerational story, Imbolo Mbue explores environmental destruction, the legacy of colonialism, and the human cost of economic greed. The novel examines the tension between hope and disillusionment, asking what communities must sacrifice in their pursuit of justice and a better future.

Stranger Faces

Namwali Serpell

What can a face tell us about a person—and how often do we mistake what we see for the truth? In this thought-provoking collection of essays, Zambian writer and scholar Namwali Serpell examines the cultural assumptions we attach to human faces, questioning why we associate appearance with identity, beauty, authenticity, and moral worth. Moving between literature, cinema, philosophy, and digital culture, Serpell explores a fascinating range of faces: those marked by disability, those that challenge racial categorisation, the faces of the dead, and even the expressive faces we create through emojis. She considers figures such as Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, and examines how society turns unfamiliar appearances into objects of fascination, fear, or pity. With intellectual curiosity, wit, and a playful approach to serious questions, Serpell challenges readers to reconsider the instinct to interpret other people through their appearance. Stranger Faces ultimately invites us to embrace ambiguity and imagine a more compassionate way of seeing one another—one that does not demand that every face conform to our expectations.

Money to Burn

Asta Olivia Nordenhof

Maggie and Kurt live in an old farmhouse in Nyborg, Denmark, struggling to maintain their marriage after their only daughter leaves home. Although they share a life, they seem unable to reach one another, trapped in a relationship shaped by longing, disappointment, and painful silences. As their story unfolds, the novel explores the circumstances that brought them together and the forces that have gradually shaped their lives. Their personal history intersects with one of Scandinavia’s most devastating tragedies: the 1990 fire aboard the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, which killed 159 people. The disaster, later linked to insurance fraud, becomes a lens through which Nordenhof examines the relationship between private suffering and wider economic systems. Moving between intimate family drama and a broader critique of capitalism, the novel asks whether love can survive in a world where money determines so much of human existence. With fragmented storytelling and emotionally intense prose, Nordenhof explores how economic inequality, gender, and violence shape intimate relationships. Money to Burn is the first instalment in the Scandinavian Star series, an ambitious literary project connecting individual lives with the consequences of greed and exploitation.

Minor Detail

Minor Detail by Palestinian writer Adania Shibli is a haunting novel that connects a crime committed in the Negev desert in 1949 with a contemporary woman’s search for the truth decades later. The first part recounts the abduction, rape, and murder of a young Bedouin woman by Israeli soldiers shortly after the 1948 war, presenting the events through a detached, almost clinical narrative that emphasizes the brutality of the act and the victim’s anonymity. In the second part, a Palestinian woman in Ramallah becomes obsessed with a seemingly minor detail: the exact date of the crime. Determined to investigate, she travels across checkpoints and restricted territories, confronting the physical and psychological barriers that shape life under occupation. Through spare prose and a carefully controlled structure, Shibli explores violence, historical erasure, memory, and the unequal power to tell stories. The novel asks how forgotten suffering can be recovered and what it means to seek truth in a landscape where history remains deeply contested.

A Burning

In A Burning, Megha Majumdar tells the story of three people whose lives become entangled after a terrorist attack on a train in India. Jivan, a young Muslim woman from a poor neighborhood, is arrested after posting a critical comment about the government’s response to the tragedy. As she awaits trial, two people who could help her pursue their own ambitions: Lovely, a hijra and aspiring actress who once received kindness from Jivan, and PT Sir, her former physical education teacher, who becomes involved in politics. As the legal system fails Jivan, the others face choices that reveal the costs of ambition, social conformity, and self-preservation. Through these intersecting lives, Majumdar examines religious discrimination, corruption, class inequality, and the fragility of justice in contemporary India. The novel offers a tense and compelling portrait of how political power and public opinion can determine the fate of vulnerable individuals.

Heads of the Colored People

Heads of the Colored People

Nafissa Thompson-Spires

In Heads of the Colored People, Nafissa Thompson-Spires explores race, identity, and belonging in contemporary Black America. Through interconnected stories, she examines the complexities of social expectations, cultural stereotypes, and the pressures of navigating identity in a society shaped by racial inequality.

United States 2019

Heaven on Earth

Heaven on Earth

What would happen if science made it possible to remain young forever? Set in Jordan in the 2090s, Heaven on Earth imagines a future transformed by advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology that allow people to reverse the aging process. Yet the promise of eternal youth brings unexpected moral, social, and emotional dilemmas. At the heart of the novel is Janna Abdallah, a journalist navigating a world where humanity has gained unprecedented control over life and death. Her brother, Jamal, who contributed to the scientific breakthroughs behind this new reality, makes the controversial decision to reject age suppression and allow himself to die naturally. His choice unsettles the family and challenges the assumptions of a society that has come to regard aging as a problem to be solved. Meanwhile, strict reproductive regulations complicate the family’s hopes for the future. Blending speculative fiction with social commentary, Zaghmout explores the ethical limits of scientific progress, individual autonomy, family relationships, and the meaning of a fulfilling life. By placing these questions within a distinctly Jordanian cultural setting, he invites readers to reconsider the boundaries between technological possibility and human freedom.

On Earth As It Is Beneath

On Earth As It Is Beneath

On Earth as It Is Beneath takes place in a remote Brazilian penal colony that has been abandoned by the authorities, leaving prisoners and guards trapped in a brutal and isolated environment. As the prison deteriorates, the people within it become increasingly subject to violence, cruelty, and arbitrary power. The boundaries between those responsible for maintaining order and those imprisoned begin to blur, exposing the moral corruption of a system that has effectively abandoned its own rules. Maia writes in stark, uncompromising prose, creating an atmosphere of dread in which the surrounding landscape intensifies the characters’ sense of confinement. The novel examines punishment, institutional neglect, and the dehumanising effects of unchecked authority. It asks what happens when a society removes people from view and then abandons responsibility for their lives.

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About this theme

Books: 140
Countries: 54

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Dominican Republic