International Fiction reviews
Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky
Booksellers are frequently asked for recommendations for ‘uplifting’ books. Whether as an antidote to turbulent times, for a relative in hospital, or for a holiday read, a novel with wit and levity i…
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Nicole Dennis-Benn dedicates her second novel to the ‘memory of the untold stories of undocumented immigrants’. We first meet Patsy in 1998 in Jamaica; she is standing in the hot sun in a long queue …
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
This book is one wild ride: a hectic riffling through the back catalogue of literature, a throwing of books into the back seat of an unglamorous car, and a helter-skelter drive across an America heav…
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
On an isolated island, things are disappearing. Ribbon, hat, bird. One by one, they all disappear, and soon, the inhabitants of the island forget they ever existed at all. The disappearances are enfo…
Nobber by Oisín Fagan
The year is 1348, and it’s a deadly one. Quite literally. As with pretty much everywhere else, the Plague (or Black Death) has ravaged the Irish landscape, decimating the population. The survivors an…
Inland by Téa Obreht
Many readers will remember Téa Obreht’s impressive debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, which won the Orange Prize back in 2011. Inland is the author’s sophomore outing and Obreht once again displays a rem…
Expectation by Anna Hope
Now in their mid-thirties, Cate and Hannah, friends since high school, are drifting apart. Oxford-educated Cate is a new mum who has relocated to Canterbury in a house purchased by her in-laws. She’s…
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead’s first novel since his Pulitzer prize-winning The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys is historical fiction. Whitehead based the setting on the Dozier School for Boys and drew on …
The Travelers by Regina Porter
Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumna Regina Porter has an award-winning background in playwriting, and it shows in every line of her much-anticipated debut novel, The Travelers. Pitched as an intergeneratio…
Travellers by Helon Habila
A unnamed narrator accompanies his artist wife who’s been awarded a fellowship in Berlin. She is American, he is Nigerian. After a miscarriage they both feel unmoored; they both react differently: hi…
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