International fiction
Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin
Hallelujah! Tales of the City fans rejoice! This month sees the release of Armistead Maupin’s 10th book in the groundbreaking series that follows the lives of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane. For those of us who have aged along…
Practice by Rosalind Brown
Scholarly success demands a certain ascetic discipline and Annabel, the protagonist of Rosalind Brown’s exceptional debut novel, thinks she’s adopted all the right habits. She’s spending a cold Sunday at the end of January in her Oxford rooms, rising early…
Butter by Asako Yuzuki & Polly Barton (trans.)
A self-proclaimed domestic goddess turned murderer and a quietly obsessive journalist desperate for a story meet in a prison to discuss boeuf bourguignon. They couldn’t have anything in common, right? Or will they come to understand more about each other…
Your Utopia by Bora Chung & Anton Hur (trans.)
I didn’t think this was possible, but Bora Chung’s latest short-story collection, Your Utopia, is even better than her acclaimed Cursed Bunny. Though still steeped in the horrific and the gory – elements of writing that Chung has…
Bird Life by Anna Smaill
Bird Life is a profoundly poignant and mesmerising second novel from Booker Prize-nominated Anna Smaill. Set in Tokyo, the novel follows two women, Dinah and Yasuko, who are dealing with trauma from recent loss. Dinah is haunted by the sudden…
My Friends by Hisham Matar
From the very first page, Hisham Matar’s My Friends bursts with bittersweet nostalgia for places and friendships lost, found, and changed. This timely, mournful novel spans a day as the main character Khaled walks across London, and reflects on the…
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
Campus novels are all the rage, aren’t they? That intoxicating mix of students going wild and the power held by academic sorts. Love affairs. Friendships. Enormous questions about life choices. Kiley Reid’s second novel does explore all the above, but…
Water by John Boyne
This is the first of a projected group of books to be followed by Fire, Earth and Air. The narrator is Vanessa Carvin, a woman fleeing an unknown family tragedy or scandal in Dublin. She has come to…
Baumgartner by Paul Auster
The opening chapter of this book is a beautifully modulated introduction to the life of philosophy professor and 71-year-old widower Sy Baumgartner. Sy roams the rooms of his brownstone, burning his hand on a saucepan that he boiled dry, wondering…
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward’s new novel, Let Us Descend, has been eagerly anticipated since it was announced, and comes six years after her last. Ward has won the National Book Award twice – for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the…
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