Narrative theme: displacement, exile, migration

Book Synopsis* Winner of the American Book Award * Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015 * A Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction * 'An absorbing story' SALMAN RUSHDIE 'Rich, vivid and gripping' GUARDIAN 'Feels at once historical and contemporary' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW In 1527, hundreds of settlers arrived on the coast of modern-day Florida and claimed the region for Spain. Within a year of navigational errors, disease, starvation and fierce resistance from indigenous tribes, only four survivors remained. Three were nobleman, whose stories found their way into the official record. The fourth was known only as Estebanico, a vibrant merchant from Barbary forced into slavery and a new name, reborn as the first African explorer of the Americas. This is his story: a journey across the great swathes of the New World, where would-be conquerors are transformed into humble servants, fearful outcasts into healers, and the silenced into storytellers.Trade ReviewAn absorbing story . . . brilliantly imagined . . . feels very like the truth -- Salman RushdieThe Moor’s Account is more than a good story, it’s a great one: rich, vivid and gripping * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis* AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST FOR 2024 * ‘A spellbinding achievement’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Poignant and often painfully comic’ OBSERVER ‘I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it’ KHALED HOSSEINI ‘Hugely impressive’ NEW EUROPEAN ‘Novels like this might help light the way’ GUARDIAN Tbilisi’s littered with memories that await me like landmines. The dearly departed voices I silenced long ago have come back without my permission. The situation calls for someone with a plan. I didn’t even bring toothpaste. Saba’s father is missing, and the trail leads back to Tbilisi, Georgia. It’s been two decades since Irakli fled his war-torn homeland with two young sons, now grown men. Two decades since he saw their mother, who stayed so they could escape. At long last, Tbilisi has lured him home. But when Irakli’s phone calls stop, a mystery begins... Arriving in the city as escaped zoo animals prowl the streets, Saba picks up the trail of clues: strange graffiti, bewildering messages transmitted through the radio, pages from his father’s unpublished manuscript scattered like breadcrumbs. As the voices of those left behind pull at the edges of his world, Saba will discover that all roads lead back to the past, and to secrets swallowed up by the great forests of Georgia. In a winding pursuit through the magic and mystery of returning to a lost homeland, Hard by a Great Forest is a rare, searching tale of home, memory and sacrifice – of one family’s mission to rescue one another, and put the past to rest.Trade ReviewA compelling novel about war, family separation and ambivalent homecoming, its tale of sacrifice, guilt and betrayal is propelled by dark mysteries and offset by glorious shafts of humour ...Novels such as this might help light the way * Guardian *A family story in an unfamiliar setting, the journey affords us glimpses of Georgian history, swearing, wine, eyebrows and mordant humour ... An intriguing treasure hunt, self-consciously picaresque and peppered with references to magic, myths and miraclesA captivating star-burst of a novel ... An all-consuming, deeply affecting story of family, memory, courage, perseverance, and brutality, leavened with a little magic and a touch of madness ... I urge you to read it * Country & Townhouse *The stakes could barely be higher in Leo Vardiashvili’s propulsive page-turner Hard by a Great Forest ... Taking its title from a line in a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Vardiashvili’s sprawling narrative, part comic, part tragic, abounds in mysteries, monsters, magic and terrors. It’s a spellbinding achievement * Financial Times *War trumps most things, Leo Vardiashvili observes early on in his poignant and often painfully comic novel about the effect of violence and conflict on those who must live through them * Observer, 10 Best New Novelists for 2024 *It is a testament to Vardiashvili’s writing that he converts the grief and yearning of the forcibly displaced into such a pacy and frequently funny novel ... Vardiashvili’s hugely impressive debut might be about a place that many of us will not know well but its themes are representative of the wider story of our era ... In this wise, moving and instructive book Vardiashvili, with extraordinary maturity and lightness of touch, cuts through the deafening white noise of sloganeering arguments to present the intimate lives of traumatised people doing their best * New European *Vardiashvili has captured the winking, world-weary humor and magic-realist touches that mark a lot of literature from Europe’s war-torn corners ... Like the voices on the radio, people can keep speaking out their dreams of rescue. And the book persuades you that sometimes, a form of it might arrive * Los Angeles Times *This powerful debut draws on the legacy of the war in Georgia in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union ... A fairytale tone allows Vardiashvili to creep up on his theme of survivor’s guilt * Mail on Sunday *Hard by a Great Forest has the offbeat lucidity of a waking dream ... a novel that indeed resembles a walk through a dark forest, Vardiashvili’s imaginative powers render his timely subject matter at once strange, disorientating and – occasionally – even magical * Daily Mail *A stupendous debut, by turns nerve-shredding, heart-rending and hilarious * Saga *Vardiashvili pushes the story on at pace as Saba searches for clues in the colourful enclaves of Georgia ... This debut is a heartfelt, lively story * i (Press Association) *This debut novel captures both the long scars of collective trauma and the indomitable spirit of those determined to remember and survive * Oprah Daily, Most Anticipated Books of 2024 *A sensitive exploration of grief, memory, loss and the immigrant experience woven seamlessly into a propulsive narrative * Perspective magazine *Rich with irony and animated with astonishing humanity, this tale of a young Georgian refugee’s odyssey into his birthplace to rescue family left my heart bruised and battered and aching for more -- Khaled HosseiniA wildly charming debut – propulsive, funny, and profound -- Elif BatumanAstonishingly crafted with history, candour, beauty, grief and just a little magic. A book like no other, from an imagination like no other. Vardiashvili has written a triumph -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of LESS IS LOSTThis novel blows open the heart of the past. It's a mystery, it's a picaresque, it's a comedy, and it's an authentic song of belonging and unbelonging ... By turns political and philosophical, it introduces a fine new voice in contemporary fiction -- Colum McCannPropulsive, profoundly moving and rich with humour and heartbreak, Hard by a Great Forest mesmerised me from the very first page. Inspired by Vardiashvili's own family story, this novel will capture your heart -- Jean KwokA sweeping, ambitious, and almost unbelievably assured debut. Exploring the long shadow of trauma cast by any war, Vardiashvili’s novel pummels the reader with an emotional force that few can match * Booklist (starred review) *Hard By A Great Forest movingly evokes the complicated feelings of trying to recapture and redefine what home looks and feels like * Bookreporter *Lushly haunted debut * Shelf Awareness *

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Book Synopsis‘One of the world’s most prominent postcolonial writers … He has consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals’ Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee Delivered in London on 7 December 2021, 'Writing' is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Collected here with three further essays, it explores his coming-of-age, his early experiences in 1960s Britain, the narratives of oceans, his lifelong love affair with reading, and the power of writing to subvert the stories that have been handed to us. Generous, funny and wise, this collection is the perfect introduction to the storyteller described as ‘one of Africa’s most important living writers’; whose work, now spanning four decades, continues to spin wonder and magic while offering penetrating insight into exile, migration and homecoming. 'In book after book, he guides us through seismic historic moments and devastating societal ruptures while gently outlining what it is that keeps those families, friendships and loving spaces intact' Maaza Mengiste 'A wondrous writer' Philippe SandsTrade ReviewPraise for Abdulrazak Gurnah: 'Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair * THE TIMES *Gurnah gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure -- MAAZE MENGISTE * GUARDIAN *A master storyteller * FINANCIAL TIMES *A powerfully evocative oeuvre that keeps coming back to the same questions, in spare, graceful prose, about the ties that bind and the ties that fray * DAILY TELEGRAPH *A real writer, someone with something to say about the world * OBSERVER *A captivating storyteller, with a voice both lyrical and mordant, and an oeuvre haunted by memory and loss. His intricate novels of arrival and departure . reveal, with flashes of acerbic humour, the lingering ties that bind continents, and how competing versions of history collide * GUARDIAN *One of Africa's greatest living writers -- GILES FODEN

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Book SynopsisIn the tradition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, an immensely powerful historical novel about the first encounters between Danish colonists and Greenlanders in the early eighteenth century, of brutal clashes between priests and pagans and the forces that drive each individual towards darkness or light.1728: The Danish King Fredrik IV sends a governor to Greenland to establish a colony, in the hopes of exploiting the country’s allegedly vast natural resources. A few merchants, a barber-surgeon, two trainee priests, a blacksmith, some carpenters and soldiers and a dozen hastily married couples go with him.The missionary priest Hans Egede has already been in Greenland for several years when the new colonists arrive. He has established a mission there, but the converts are few. Among those most hostile to Egede is the shaman Aappaluttoq, whose own son was taken by the priest and raised in the Christian faith as his own. Thus the great rift between two men, and two ways of life, is born.The newly arrived couples – men and women plucked from prison – quickly sink into a life of almost complete dissolution, and soon unsanitary conditions, illness and death bring the colony to its knees. Through the starvation and the epidemics that beset the colony, Egede remains steadfast in his determination – willing to sacrifice even those he loves for the sake of his mission.Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Kim Leine's The Colony of Good Hope explores what happens when two cultures confront one another. In a distant colony, under the harshest conditions, the overwhelming forces of nature meet the vices of man.Trade ReviewPraise for The Prophets of Eternal Fjord:'From the outset of his career, Kim Leine established himself as a Scandinavian literary figure without precedent.' * Guardian *A superb novel . . . A raw, hugely powerful chronicle of lives lived on the edge . . . Has a grandeur and a compass that few novels this year will match. * Sunday Times *

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Book Synopsis'A superb novel . . . A hugely powerful chronicle of lives lived on the edge' - Sunday Times, Books of the YearIn the tradition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, an immensely powerful historical novel about the first encounters between Danish colonists and Greenlanders in the early eighteenth century, of brutal clashes between priests and pagans and the forces that drive each individual towards darkness or light.1728: The Danish King Fredrik IV sends a governor to Greenland to establish a colony, in the hopes of exploiting the country’s allegedly vast natural resources. A few merchants, a barber-surgeon, two trainee priests, a blacksmith, some carpenters and soldiers and a dozen hastily married couples go with him.The missionary priest Hans Egede has already been in Greenland for several years when the new colonists arrive. He has established a mission there, but the converts are few. Among those most hostile to Egede is the shaman Aappaluttoq, whose own son was taken by the priest and raised in the Christian faith as his own. Thus the great rift between two men, and two ways of life, is born.The newly arrived couples – men and women plucked from prison – quickly sink into a life of almost complete dissolution, and soon unsanitary conditions, illness and death bring the colony to its knees. Through the starvation and the epidemics that beset the colony, Egede remains steadfast in his determination – willing to sacrifice even those he loves for the sake of his mission.Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Kim Leine's The Colony of Good Hope explores what happens when two cultures confront one another. In a distant colony, under the harshest conditions, the overwhelming forces of nature meet the vices of man.Trade ReviewPraise for The Prophets of Eternal Fjord:'From the outset of his career, Kim Leine established himself as a Scandinavian literary figure without precedent.' * Guardian *A superb novel . . . A raw, hugely powerful chronicle of lives lived on the edge . . . Has a grandeur and a compass that few novels this year will match. * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisFrom the acclaimed author of Immigrant, Montana comes a one-of-a-kind novel about memory, politics, a world of lies, and the ways in which truth can be not only stranger than fiction, but a fiction of its own.'A shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist.' – The New YorkerWhen Satya attends a prestigious artists’ retreat, he finds the pressures of the outside world won’t let up: the US president rages online; a dangerous virus envelops the globe; and the twenty-four-hour news cycle throws fuel on every fire. These Orwellian interruptions begin to crystallize into an idea for his new novel about the lies we tell ourselves and each other. Satya scours his life for moments where truth bends toward the imagined, and misinformation is mistaken as fact.As he sifts through newspaper clippings, the President’s tweets, childhood memories from India, and moments as an immigrant, a husband, father, and teacher, Amitava Kumar’s A Time Outside This Time captures our feverish political moment with a precisely observant intelligence and an eye for the uncanny.A brilliant meditation on life in a post-truth era, this piercing novel captures the sentiment on all our minds, of how impossible it can feel to remember, or to imagine, a time outside of this one.Trade ReviewIn this age of lies, can we rely on fiction to cover the facts? Amitava Kumar’s entertaining and incisive A Time Outside This Time provides a convincing answer . . . necessary and beautiful. -- Cheryl Strayed, author of WildA brilliant, expansive account of one man’s attempt to follow his moral compass through a maze of disinformation and discord. Kumar has an uncanny ability to find and illuminate the radiance that remains in our half-ruined world. -- Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Dept of SpeculationBeautiful, deft and full of memorable details . . . A Time Outside This Time is a courageous book, incredibly relevant for the present moment and crucial for imagining a better future. -- Aleksandar Hemon, author of Nowhere Man and The Lazarus ProjectLike a modern Orwell or Thoreau, Amitava Kumar explores the dangers of disinformation and the ways politics shape our everyday lives. Sensuous and searching, this is an absorbing portrait of an inspired artist in the midst of our maddening cultural moment. -- Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland ElegiesAmitava Kumar has the precious ability to write across borders and cultures. This brilliant, learned, and anguished novel succeeds in inventing a new vantage point on our agitated and bewildering world. -- Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland Novels this good come along once in a lifetime. Kumar has fashioned a brilliant prophetic meditation on the age of untruth. -- Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoAs Satya uncovers the "truth of fiction," Kumar provides a shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist. * New Yorker *Kumar navigates the mists of contemporary deception with a penetrating intelligence and keen sense of paradox -- TLS

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Book SynopsisFrom the acclaimed author of Immigrant, Montana comes a one-of-a-kind novel about memory, politics, a world of lies, and the ways in which truth can be not only stranger than fiction, but a fiction of its own.'A shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist.' – The New YorkerWhen Satya attends a prestigious artists’ retreat, he finds the pressures of the outside world won’t let up: the US president rages online; a dangerous virus envelops the globe; and the twenty-four-hour news cycle throws fuel on every fire. These Orwellian interruptions begin to crystallize into an idea for his new novel about the lies we tell ourselves and each other. Satya scours his life for moments where truth bends toward the imagined, and misinformation is mistaken as fact.As he sifts through newspaper clippings, the President’s tweets, childhood memories from India, and experiences as an immigrant, a husband, father, and teacher, Amitava Kumar’s A Time Outside This Time captures our feverish political moment with a precisely observant intelligence and an eye for the uncanny.A brilliant meditation on life in a post-truth era, this piercing novel captures the sentiment on all our minds, of how impossible it can feel to remember, or to imagine, a time outside of this one.Trade ReviewIn this age of lies, can we rely on fiction to cover the facts? Amitava Kumar’s entertaining and incisive A Time Outside This Time provides a convincing answer . . . necessary and beautiful. -- Cheryl Strayed, author of WildA brilliant, expansive account of one man’s attempt to follow his moral compass through a maze of disinformation and discord. Kumar has an uncanny ability to find and illuminate the radiance that remains in our half-ruined world. -- Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Dept of SpeculationBeautiful, deft and full of memorable details . . . A Time Outside This Time is a courageous book, incredibly relevant for the present moment and crucial for imagining a better future. -- Aleksandar Hemon, author of Nowhere Man and The Lazarus ProjectLike a modern Orwell or Thoreau, Amitava Kumar explores the dangers of disinformation and the ways politics shape our everyday lives. Sensuous and searching, this is an absorbing portrait of an inspired artist in the midst of our maddening cultural moment. -- Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland ElegiesAmitava Kumar has the precious ability to write across borders and cultures. This brilliant, learned, and anguished novel succeeds in inventing a new vantage point on our agitated and bewildering world. -- Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland Novels this good come along once in a lifetime. Kumar has fashioned a brilliant prophetic meditation on the age of untruth. -- Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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Book SynopsisThree generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this blazing debut of one family's queer desires, violent impulses and buried secrets.One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman's body. Her name was Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her estranged grandmother; a visiting aunt leaves red on everything she touches; a ghost bird shimmers in an ancient birdcage.All the while, Daughter is falling for a neighbourhood girl named Ben with mysterious stories of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother's letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies an old Taiwanese myth, and fears the power of the tiger spirit bristling within her to cause pain. She will have to bring her family's secrets to light in order to derail their destiny. 'What gives me fuel are other books - anything stylish and/or dirty. This year I loved reading K-Ming Chang's Bestiary' Raven Leilani, author of LusterTrade ReviewA powerful novel that will sit inside you for days after reading -- Lucy Knight * Sunday Times *A visceral, magical tale - every sentence is worth savouring. -- Kirsty Logan, author of Things We Say in the DarkFull of magic realism that reaches down your throat, grabs hold of your guts and forces a slow reckoning with what it means to be a foreigner, a native, a mother, a daughter * New York Times *Chang makes a spell rise from every wound, and I'm caught all the way up in this magic... one of the best emerging writers out there. -- Danez SmithK-Ming Chang's prose ravishes, ravages, rampages. This is an absolute lightning strike of a debut. The world grew brighter as I read it. -- Kelly Link, author of GET IN TROUBLE

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"This novel will be nostalgia trip for anyone who grew up in similar circumstances and a breath of fresh Jamaican air for anyone else" The Voice Jenny and Hortense Rodney have always loved and hated one another in the way that only sisters can. From their childhood in Claremont, rural Jamaica, to working life amid the hustle and bustle of Trenchtown, they are the turning point in a multi-generational tale.Enticed by the possibilities of the colonial "motherland", the sisters move to England and settle in the bleak streets of Brixton, only to find that this land of opportunity is instead one that will stretch their fractious relationship to breaking point . . . A hauntingly beautifully evocation of twentieth-century Jamaica and the Brixton of the Windrush generation, Island Songs is an epic of love, laughter and sorely tested family loyalties. By the author of Brixton Rock, East of Acre Lane and Homeboys, and several bestselling, prizewinning novels for younger readers"Island Songs grabs your heart " Independent"Alex Wheatle has a real talent for understated, convincing dialogue" Big Issue

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Book Synopsis“This beautiful book is shot through with such tenderness and humanity, such love and courage and beauty and hope, that it feels almost like a prayer.” —Margaret Renkl, author of Late MigrationsA timely, powerful story of survival set in the not-too-distant future, reminding us to always hold on to hope, even in the worst of times. With fires devastating much of America, Lark and his family first leave their home in Maryland for Maine. But as the country increasingly falls under the grip of religious nationalism, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe, not just from physical disasters but also persecution. The family secures a place on a crowded boat headed to Ireland, the last place on earth rumored to be accepting American refugees. Upon arrival, it turns out that the safe harbor of Ireland no longer exists either—and Lark, the sole survivor of the trans-Atlantic voyage, must disappear into the countryside. As he runs for his life, Lark finds two equally lost and desperate souls: one of the last remaining dogs, who becomes his closest companion, and a fierce, mysterious woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection. But can any community provide the safety that they seek? Lark Ascending is a moving and unforgettable story of friendship and bravery, and even more, a story of the ongoing fight to protect our per­sonal freedoms and find our shared humanity, from a writer at the peak of his powers.Trade Review“I was sucked into this urgent story where survival in the not-too-distant future depends on forging connections with strangers and nurturing tenderness and hope within. An essential, heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting read.”—Michelle Gallen, author of Factory Girls and Big Girl, Small Town “With Lark Ascending, the gifted Silas House has, with the most deft and masterful touches, forged a quite terrifying and all-too-plausible glimpse of our near future and somehow imbued it with almost impossible quantities of poetry and humanity. A gripping story of endurance, suffering and loss, but also of overwhelming love, loyalty and hope, the result is a hugely impressive feat of the imagination . . . A beautiful, haunting piece of work, and a compulsive read.”—Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences and The Dead House“In Lark Ascending, Silas House casts an irresistible spell, conjuring a near future that is both familiar and unbearable, illuminating the brutality and suffering that our own thoughtless age seems determined to invoke. But Lark Ascending is not merely, or even mainly, a tale of pain and grief. This beautiful book is shot through with such tenderness and humanity, such love and courage and beauty and hope, that it feels almost like a prayer.”—Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations “I was sucked into this urgent story where survival in the not-too-distant future depends on forging connections with strangers and nurturing tenderness and hope within. An essential, heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting read.”—Michelle Gallen, author of Factory Girls and Big Girl, Small Town “With Lark Ascending, the gifted Silas House has, with the most deft and masterful touches, forged a quite terrifying and all-too-plausible glimpse of our near future and somehow imbued it with almost impossible quantities of poetry and humanity. A gripping story of endurance, suffering and loss, but also of overwhelming love, loyalty and hope, the result is a hugely impressive feat of the imagination . . . A beautiful, haunting piece of work, and a compulsive read.” —Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences and The Dead House“In Lark Ascending, Silas House casts an irresistible spell, conjuring a near future that is both familiar and unbearable, illuminating the brutality and suffering that our own thoughtless age seems determined to invoke. But Lark Ascending is not merely, or even mainly, a tale of pain and grief. This beautiful book is shot through with such tenderness and humanity, such love and courage and beauty and hope, that it feels almost like a prayer.”—Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations “A dystopian classic, finding new notes of peril and possibility in the once-and-future homeland of Ireland and giving us the kind of richly observed alternative family that humanity of any era would call savior. It also has the best dog ever, excepting my own. Don’t miss this one.” —Louis Bayard, author of Jackie and Me “Silas House has always served as an ancestor from the past who has stepped into the present with rich lessons in tow. But with Lark House reveals himself to be an oracle from the future who has come back to illuminate our lived moment with a snapshot of what the years ahead could hold. The vision is terrifying and spare, but in House’s capable and delicate telling, it is also beautiful and compelling. Lark marks a stunning turn in House’s career, taking him from the Appalachian Mountains to a post-apocalyptic Atlantic crossing, but I have no doubt that readers will follow Silas House wherever he goes, whether into the past or headlong into the future.” —Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of When Ghosts Come Home “I was sucked into this urgent story where survival in the not-too-distant future depends on forging connections with strangers and nurturing tenderness and hope within. An essential, heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting read.”—Michelle Gallen, author of Factory Girls and Big Girl, Small Town “With Lark Ascending, the gifted Silas House has, with the most deft and masterful touches, forged a quite terrifying and all-too-plausible glimpse of our near future and somehow imbued it with almost impossible quantities of poetry and humanity. A gripping story of endurance, suffering and loss, but also of overwhelming love, loyalty and hope, the result is a hugely impressive feat of the imagination . . . A beautiful, haunting piece of work, and a compulsive read.” —Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences and The Dead House“Just astonishing . . . Terrifying, moving, beautiful, instructive, and haunting. I have never been more deeply moved by a novel.” —Lee Smith, author of Dimestore “In Lark Ascending, Silas House casts an irresistible spell, conjuring a near future that is both familiar and unbearable, illuminating the brutality and suffering that our own thoughtless age seems determined to invoke. But Lark Ascending is not merely, or even mainly, a tale of pain and grief. This beautiful book is shot through with such tenderness and humanity, such love and courage and beauty and hope, that it feels almost like a prayer.”—Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations “A dystopian classic, finding new notes of peril and possibility in the once-and-future homeland of Ireland and giving us the kind of richly observed alternative family that humanity of any era would call savior. It also has the best dog ever, excepting my own. Don’t miss this one.” —Louis Bayard, author of Jackie Me “Silas House has always served as an ancestor from the past who has stepped into the present with rich lessons in tow. But with Lark House reveals himself to be an oracle from the future who has come back to illuminate our lived moment with a snapshot of what the years ahead could hold. The vision is terrifying and spare, but in House’s capable and delicate telling, it is also beautiful and compelling. Lark marks a stunning turn in House’s career, taking him from the Appalachian Mountains to a post-apocalyptic Atlantic crossing, but I have no doubt that readers will follow Silas House wherever he goes, whether into the past or headlong into the future.” —Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of When Ghosts Come Home “I was sucked into this urgent story where survival in the not-too-distant future depends on forging connections with strangers and nurturing tenderness and hope within. An essential, heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting read.”—Michelle Gallen, author of Factory Girls and Big Girl, Small Town “With Lark Ascending, the gifted Silas House has, with the most deft and masterful touches, forged a quite terrifying and all-too-plausible glimpse of our near future and somehow imbued it with almost impossible quantities of poetry and humanity. A gripping story of endurance, suffering and loss, but also of overwhelming love, loyalty and hope, the result is a hugely impressive feat of the imagination . . . A beautiful, haunting piece of work, and a compulsive read.” —Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences and The Dead House“In Lark Ascending, Silas House casts an irresistible spell, conjuring a near future that is both familiar and unbearable, illuminating the brutality and suffering that our own thoughtless age seems determined to invoke. But Lark Ascending is not merely, or even mainly, a tale of pain and grief. This beautiful book is shot through with such tenderness and humanity, such love and courage and beauty and hope, that it feels almost like a prayer.” —Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations and Graceland, At LastKentucky Poet Laureate Southern Literary Award Winner Nautilus Award Winner – Gold Indie BestsellerSalon Favorite Book of 2022Booklist Editors' Choice of 2022Garden and Gun Best Southern Book of 2022 Indie Next List PickLos Angeles Times' Most Anticipated Fall 2022Lambda Literary's Most Anticipated Fall 2022 —AwardsKentucky Poet Laureate Southern Literary Award Winner Nautilus Award Winner – Gold Indie BestsellerSalon Favorite Book of 2022Booklist Editors' Choice of 2022Garden and Gun Best Southern Book of 2022 Indie Next List PickLos Angeles Times' Most Anticipated Fall 2022Lambda Literary's Most Anticipated Fall 2022 “Silas House has always served as an ancestor from the past who has stepped into the present with rich lessons in tow. But with Lark House reveals himself to be an oracle from the future who has come back to illuminate our lived moment with a snapshot of what the years ahead could hold. The vision is terrifying and spare, but in House’s capable and delicate telling, it is also beautiful and compelling. Lark marks a stunning turn in House’s career, taking him from the Appalachian Mountains to a post-apocalyptic Atlantic crossing, but I have no doubt that readers will follow Silas House wherever he goes, whether into the past or headlong into the future.”—Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of When Ghosts Come Home“A postapocalyptic epic that is quiet and lyrical…an emotional testament to the power of hope.”—Booklist (starred review)“Truly harrowing, yet even more deeply affecting and tender. . . This is very much a book about connection, family, and, above all else, hope. It is this deep hopefulness that allows House’s novel to transcend the constraints of some other dystopian novels. . . Lark Ascending is full of rich colors and sounds and images, brimming with the majesty of life.”—Chapter16.org“Amazing… powerful, and prescient.” —Dallas Voice“A fiercely visceral reading experience.”—Publishers Weekly“A cleareyed and engaging apocalyptic yarn.”—Kirkus Reviews“Lark Ascending’s beautiful language and imagery, combined with the emotional heft of the story, drew me in from the first paragraph.”—Literary Hub“The not-too-distant dystopia of House’s latest becomes a vehicle for the author to tell a compelling story about a refugee crisis. Because House takes the story out of a contemporary context, readers can more easily empathize with the novel’s refugees rather than focusing on real-world quandaries.”—Library Journal“Silas House’s “Lark Ascending” is a dystopian classic, finding new notes of peril and possibility in the once-and-future homeland of Ireland and giving us the kind of richly observed alternative family that humanity of any era would call savior. It also has the best dog ever, excepting my own. Don’t miss this one.”—Louis Bayard, author of Jackie and Me“The narrator of House’s seventh novel is a young gay man who’s escaped a near-future America knocked sideways by climate change and right-wing militias. His destination is Ireland, working off little more than a rumor that an Edenic safe haven isn’t far over the horizon. House works with some familiar dystopian tropes, but the book is distinguished by his lyrical, earthy tone.”—Los Angeles Times (Most Anticipated Fall Book)“I was sucked into this urgent story where survival in the not-too-distant future depends on forging connections with strangers and nurturing tenderness and hope within. An essential, heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting read.”—Michelle Gallen, author of Factory Girls“Just astonishing . . .terrifying, moving, beautiful, instructive, and haunting. I have never been more deeply moved by a novel.”—Lee Smith, author of Dimestore“With Lark Ascending, the gifted Silas House has, with the most deft and masterful touches, forged a quite terrifying and all-too-plausible glimpse of our near future and somehow imbued it with almost impossible quantities of poetry and humanity. A gripping story of endurance, suffering and loss, but also of overwhelming love, loyalty and hope, the result is a hugely impressive feat of the imagination . . . A beautiful, haunting piece of work, and a compulsive read.” —Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences and The Dead House“The greatest Southern novel of the year.”—Georgia Public Broadcast / Salvation South"A poignant tale... Lark Ascending is full of such magic."—Southern Literary Review"Exciting, hopeful, and beautiful."—Alabama Public Radio / Don Noble's Book Reviews"This is a story of the dangers of both flight and immigration, survival enabled by chosen families, and the grace of humanity amid chaos. I had to read some sentences several times over to fully appreciate the beauty of the writing."—Kathleen Lance, Denver Reader, Denver Post“Silas House’s apocalyptic parable strikes the heart powerfully because of the eerie parallels to now… Lushly written”—Bowling Green Daily News

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Book SynopsisWhat did the disintegration of the Soviet Union feel like for the people who lived through it? Award-winning writer Sasha Salzmann tells this story in a remarkable novel about two women in extraordinary times As a child, Lena longs to pick hazelnuts in the woods with her grandmother. Instead, she is raised to be a good socialist: sent to Pioneer summer camps where she's taught to worship Lenin and sing songs in praise of the glorious Soviet Union. But perestroika is coming. Lena's corner of the USSR is now Ukraine, and corruption and patronage are the only ways to get by - to secure a place at university, an apartment, treatment for a sick baby. For Tatjana, the shock of the new means the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union and certified foreign whisky, but no food in the shops; it means terrible choices about how to love. Eventually both women must decide whether to stay or to emigrate, but the trauma they carry is handed down to their daughters, who struggle to make sense of their own identities. Glorious People is a vivid depiction of how the collapse of the Soviet Union reverberated through the lives of ordinary people. Engrossing, rich in detail and unforgettable characters, this is a captivating love letter to mothers and daughters.Trade Review''A story of several generations of women that poignantly demonstrates the imprint of history on people's lives, often with tragic consequences. Salzmann conveys the emotional turmoil and agonizing choices their characters make with exquisite nuance and sensitivity. Their distinctive voice, elegant prose and engaging narrative result in a marvelous work'' - Victoria Belim, author of The Rooster House'Glorious People is hypnotic, sweeping, and more relevant than ever. The mothers and daughters of Glorious People will stick with you long after you turn the last page of this mesmerizing, sharp, and devastating novel. They are searching for meaning and belonging as immigrants, mothers, wives, professionals, and citizens of a complex and ever-changing world. This novel offers a fresh take on the Soviet diaspora that offers both a meaningful critique and a semblance of much-needed hope for the future.' - Maria Kuznetsova, author of Something Unbelievable'In an unflinching examination of mother-daughter ties, Salzmann recreates the lost and newly found world, populating it with powerfully drawn, unforgettable characters. Masterful and haunting' - Elena Gorokhova, author of A Train to Moscow'[Salzmann] writes in a broad, timelessly epic style. There is a quiet sovereignty here that gives one great hope that we are reading one of the next great German storytellers' - Suddeutsche Zeitung'A brilliant book... [that] vibrates with the pleasure of narrating' - Neue Zurcher Zeitung

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Book Synopsis'Gundar-Goshen is adept at instilling emotional depth into a thriller plot' New York Times Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, the award-winning author of Waking Lions and Liar, returns with a powerfully compelling novel about a mother who begins to suspect her teenage son of committing a terrible crime Lilach seems to have it all: a beautiful home in the heart of Silicon Valley, a community of other Israeli immigrants, a happy marriage and a close relationship with her teenage son, Adam. But when aa local synagogue is brutally attacked, her shy, reclusive son is compelled to join a self-defense class taught by a former Israeli Special Forces officer. Then a Black teenager dies at a house party, and rumours begin to circulate that Adam and his new friends might have been involved. As scrutiny begins to invade Lilach's peaceful home, and her family's stability is threatened, will are her own fears be the greatest danger of all? This psychologically astute, timely and page-turning literary novel is perfect for fans of Leïla Slimani, Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver PRAISE FOR AYELET GUNDAR-GOSHEN 'It's not every day a writer like this comes our way' Guardian 'Gundar-Goshen is interested in examining the messy grey areas between right and wrong, good and bad, victim and perpetrator' Financial Times 'Deliciously enticing... a plot that thrills at every twist and turn' Irish Times on Liar 'A classy, suspenseful tale... shine[s] a penetrating light into the dark corners of our safe lives' The Times on Waking Lines 'This is storytelling that feels instinctive... both moving and satisfying' Guardian on One Night, MarkovitchTrade Review'It's not every day a writer like this comes our way' - Guardian'Flawed but relatable characters and off-the-charts emotional intensity with a sharply evoked Israeli cultural perspective' - Kirkus Reviews'A moral mystery for the thinking reader' - Financial Times on Liar'Gundar-Goshen is interested in examining the messy grey areas between right and wrong, good and bad, victim and perpetrator' - Financial Times'Deliciously enticing... a plot that thrills at every twist and turn' - Irish Times on Liar'Gundar-Goshen carefully peels back her plot like an onion . . . I loved the novel' -Jewish Chronicle'A meditation on paranoia and belonging. Gundar-Goshen, a clinical psychologist and author of the acclaimed Waking Lions and Liar, shows how a tragedy exposes problems in seemingly happy lives. She is adept at drawing out the fragility of identity' -Financial Times'[The Wolf Hunt] reaches out and wraps itself around the issues - parenting, antisemitism, masculinity - and exemplifies them in character and dialogue' -Observer'Gundar-Goshen ensnares her characters in some heart-stopping moral dilemmas in this sharp, compassionate tale of race, identity and a mother's fears' -Mail on Sunday'As focused as we are on protecting our children, The Wolf Hunt questions our certainties about who and what we want to protect them from' -Spectator'The Wolf Hunt succeeds thanks to the sheer strength and complexity of Lilach's fraught, acutely self-critical character, racked by the competing demands of motherhood and morality... lithe, observant prose' -Literary Review'The manipulation of tension here is exquisite' -Strong Words'Gundar-Goshen does an excellent job in setting up the privilege and paranoia in her character's lives as their lives slowly unravel' -Marie Claire, best books of 2023

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Book SynopsisInspired by a true story, a beautiful novel-in-verse about a child far from home. From award-winning poet Liz Berry.*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS' PRIZE FOR POETRY 2024*'A profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible' Guardian 'Book of the Day''Ground-breaking' Benjamin Zephaniah'Exquisite' Hannah Lowe, author of The Kids'Home's not a place, you must believe this,but one who names you and means beloved.'In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants.In Nova Scotia, Eliza's world becomes a place where ordinary things are transfigured into treasures - a red ribbon, the feel of a foal's mane, the sound of her name on someone else's lips. With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of Cape Breton is the only solace Eliza has - until another Home Child, a boy, comes to the farm and changes everything.Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry's great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home.'Vivid, compassionate and makes Eliza Showell's voice heard at last' Financial Times *Best Poetry Books of summer 2023*'A haunting, deeply compelling narrative' Andrew McMillan, author of physical'Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems' Fiona Benson, author of Vertigo & GhostTrade ReviewOne of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless * Sunday Times *A story that is not only heartbreaking but also, essentially, true ... [The Home Child] is a profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible * Guardian, Book of the Day *Berry's novel in verse is based on an aunt she never met... It's vivid, compassionate and, a century after her forced migration, makes little Eliza Showell's voice heard at last * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2023* *Liz Berry has given the world another ground-breaking collection of poems. These verses are sensitive and tender, yet the language is real and unflinching. * Benjamin Zephaniah *An extraordinary work of imagination . . . Poetic virtuosity is combined with novelistic story-telling as we follow the unfolding fate of Eliza Showell . . . An exquisite book. * Hannah Lowe *Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems * Fiona Benson *'Magnificent . . . She takes us on a heartbreaking journey, and she persuades us to examine our own past, whoever we are.' * Ian McMillan *One of the most anticipated second collections of the decade... Enchanting... Berry combines the historical and the personal, the local and international, weaving them into a story that has its own accumulating emotional force * Irish Times *A triumph. A novel in verse, an elegy, a profound act of witness . . . Eliza is brought to such tangible and complex life I feel as though I've met her * Luke Kennard *'One of my favourite books of all time. Every collection by Liz Berry is a treasure, but this one struck even deeper. It has universal reach to the ongoing exploitation of earth's poor. * Pascale Petit *A haunting, deeply compelling narrative, that holds the reader tight to the animal anchor of the natural world, and speaks in the unique idiolect of its own genealogy * Andrew McMillan, author of PHYSICAL *The Home Child is so beautiful . . . [Liz] honours Home Children & with a eerie magic ventriloquises her ancestor Eliza Showell * Amy Key *'A remarkable collection . . . A thought-provoking weave of fact and imagination . . . It describes in her own words how her life is transformed, and in doing so, transforms ours' * John Glenday *Deeply moving. A graceful, delicate book, stunning in its emotional depth... I know I'll return to it many times in the future * Megan Hunter, author of THE END WE START FROM *There is something of Hardy's heartbreak note to these poems . . . The Home Child is both blues and rhapsody; Liz Berry's musicality and gift for the telling image matched by her sensitivity to and love for her subject. * Declan Ryan *Deeply moving, unforgettable. * Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat *'Liz Berry's poetry is spell-work . . . Her voice carves creatures out of words, and sets them dancing.' * Jen Campbell *Liz Berry ... sings of love, loss, grief, work, wonder, hope. To say I love this, the quiet power of it, would understate * Jackie Morris, author of The Unwinding *'Liz Berry's poems are captivating and charged with her characteristically rich and sensuous Black Country language. The Home Child brings to light the devastating history of forced child migration in the service of Empire and is a deeply moving tribute to the author's great aunt. This is a book that should be on the curriculum' * Naush Sabah *Liz Berry achieves a fusion of poetry and fiction as gripping as any thriller... Inspired by the true story of her great aunt...this compelling novel in verse is a moving portrait of a girl who will never see her family again * Daily Mail *

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Book Synopsis'A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war - an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present' Deborah Levy March 1941. A converted cargo ship, the Paul-Lemerle, left Marseille on a voyage to the Caribbean, fleeing Vichy France and the devastation of the war. The ship was filled with immigrants from the East, exiled Spanish Republicans, Jews, stateless persons and decadent artists. Among them were Claude Lévi-Strauss, the painter Wifredo Lam, the writers Anna Seghers and André Breton, and the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge. Can we know the taste of pineapple from listening to travellers' tales? asks Bosc in the follow-up to his bestselling debut. Can we ever feel the sensation of history? Mixing the documentary techniques of history, the imaginative leaps of fiction and the cool analysis of the essay, Bosc takes us from Marseille to Casablanca to Martinique and on to New York, to tell an evocative story of migration, cultural crisis and the intellectual cost of the rise of fascism.Trade ReviewAn intellectually star-studded and dreamy document, Outrageous Horizon leads the reader irresistibly along, and leaves a lingering sense of amazement in its wake -- Geoff DyerAn outlaws' odyssey of the Second World War -- Éric Vuillard, author * The Order of the Day *Outrageous Horizon is an erudite, brilliantly imagined odyssey into exile that weaves historic narrative, psychological writing, and cultural history. With his immersive portrait of a distinguished cast of mid-20th century refugees, Adrien Bosc guides us into the choppy seas of our own present moment where catastrophe, once again, meets opportunity -- Kapka Kassabova, author * Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe *A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war - an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present -- Deborah Levy, author * Hot Milk *Erudite and charming * Vanity Fair *

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Book SynopsisTravel across ten decades and three continents in The Ash Museum, a mesmerising intergenerational saga of loss, migration, and the search for home.The year is 1944, and the Battle of Kohima claims the life of James Ash, who leaves behind two families his wife and children, as well as his parents and sister who live in England unaware of his Indian family.Fast forward to 2012, where Emmie is determined to raise her daughter in a world safe from the racism of her childhood. Her father, Jay, still haunted by his past, remains silent about his Indian life. One day, Emmie seeks solace in a local museum filled with another family's stories and artifacts. Little does she know that her own family's history is itself a treasure trove of secrets and mysteries awaiting her discovery.''Extraordinary'' Christie Hickman, Books Editor, S Magazine''A beautifully written, multi-generational tale'' Ella Dove, novelist and Commissioning Editor at Good Housekeeping, Prima and Red magazines''Rebecca Smith's book demonstrates, yet again, her gift for vivid humour and deep empathy'' Philip Hoare''A timely and acutely observed novel about family and the circle of life'' Carmel Harrington

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Book Synopsis‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further … a stunningly lyrical novel’ Alex Preston, Observer‘Pitched – deliriously – between high modernism and folk magic, between gorgeous free-verse and hilarious Irish vernacular, Poguemahone is a stunning achievement … profoundly affecting’ David Keenan‘A blistering, brilliant ballad of mad tales from rural Ireland to London Town. The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy. McCabe is truly original’ Elaine FeeneyDan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, is looking after his sister Una, now seventy and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate. From Dan’s anarchic account, we gradually piece together the story of the Fogarty family. How the parents are exiled from a small Irish village and end up living the hard immigrant life in England. How Dots, the mother, becomes a call girl in 1950s Soho. How a young and overweight Una finds herself living in a hippie squat in Kilburn in the early 1970s. How the squat appears to be haunted by vindictive ghosts who eat away at the sanity of all who live there. And, finally, how all that survives now of those sex-and-drug-soaked times are Una’s unspooling memories as she sits outside in the Margate sunshine, and Dan himself, whose role in the story becomes stranger and more sinister. Poguemahone is a huge, shape-shifting epic from one of modern Ireland's greatest writers. It is a wild, free-verse monologue, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale Patrick McCabe has never attempted before. Trade Review ‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further … a stunningly lyrical novel’ Alex Preston, Observer ‘Pitched – deliriously – between high modernism and folk magic, between gorgeous free-verse and hilarious Irish vernacular, Poguemahone is a stunning achievement … profoundly affecting’ David Keenan ‘A blistering, brilliant ballad of mad tales from rural Ireland to London Town. The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy. McCabe is truly original’ Elaine Feeney ‘A tremendous pitch-black multi-layered epic. This exhilarating ride of madness, hauntings, lost weekends and fractured memory is a lyrical poem, novel, ballad and drama all in one … one of the most original literary works in recent times. I bloody loved it’ Adelle Stripe 'A difficult reading experience, to be sure, but a rich one, too, with a skin-pricking ambience that’s both gritty and ethereal' Daily Mail 'McCabe draws the reader into a rambling web replete with Gaelic folklore, IRA agitation, and a soundtrack of glam and progressive rock. Lively and ambitious in form, this admirably extends the range of McCabe’s career-long examination of familial and childhood trauma’ Publishers Weekly, US 'Patrick McCabe's hippie satire is like Flann O'Brien on drugs' Sean O'Brien, The Telegraph 'Modernist and eager to push the boundaries of his own art and the art form of the novel, here is a novelist and novel to celebrate in all their ribald, audacious, outrageous, and compelling brilliance' Paul Perry, Irish Sunday Independent 'The vernacular, drunken verse format may be daunting at first, but after a few pages the narrative develops a hypnotic rhythm, as if one is sitting on a barstool listening to the narrator unspool his story over a pint (or three). At this point, the reader has merely to hang on and enjoy the ride. A moving saga of youth, age, and memory—by turns achingly poetic, knowingly philosophical, and bitterly funny' Kirkus Reviews 'McCabe may be right when he claims that Poguemahone is his best book: it is startlingly original, moving, funny, frightening and beautiful’ The Guardian '“Poguemahone,” living up to its author’s reputation, is daring, studded with brilliance, raucous and exhausting. It might overstay its welcome, but you’ll remember its visit’ The New York Times ‘Like listening to a friend confess their life story after one too many pints, Poguemahone is a rustic and irreverent atragedy of tormented souls and macabre humour’ Noah Katz, Hot Press ‘I warn you, like all good books, Poguemahone is a mind-altering drug’ BBC 4 Front Row 'There are plenty of outrageous stories, all delivered with unflagging flair, but prospective readers are advised to equip themselves like that cornered pub-goer: with a tall glass of whiskey at hand' Wall Street Journal 'Poguemahone is a stunning novel, one of those exceedingly rare books that deserve to be described as a masterpiece' Locus Magazine 'With few exceptions, the novel in verse doesn’t much appeal to today’s mainstream publishers, and this is not only because verse novels are often awful, but also because even the good ones rarely find a large audience. One can only hope Poguemahone attracts a readership beyond its crowdfunding backers on Unbound because, in its haunting strangeness and blazing originality, it deserves far more than a cult following' Times Literary Supplement

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Book Synopsis'Moskovich is the master of silky, slinky sentences that run in unexpected directions' The Telegraph'Sexy and readable . . . a celebration of resilience and of myriad survivors' Times Literary Supplement'One of the best fiction releases of 2023' Dazed DigitalA queer anthem for doomed youth by the author of Virtuoso and A Door Behind a DoorOn the longest night of a Berlin winter two women sit side-by-side. Both fled the Soviet Union as children, one from Ukraine, and her girlfriend from Russia.A thigh shifts, fingers fold in, a shoulder is lowered. Neither speak.As silence weighs heavy between them, decades of Ukrainian and Russian history resurface, from Yiddish jokes, Kyiv's DIY queer parties and the hidden messages in Russian pop music, to resistance in Odessa, raids in Moscow clubs and the death of their friend.As the requiem inside the narrator's head expands within the darkness of the room, she asks the all-important question: what does it mean to have hope?'Nadezhda in the Dark is a marvel - a spellbinding work' LAUREN ELKIN'Yelena Moskovich is a true original, a literary titan, an innovator' JENNI FAGANTrade ReviewSexy and readable [...] This is a story of one night, but you could equally describe it as a 182-page love letter; a celebration of resilience and of myriad survivors; a troubling history of LGBTQ+ communities in Eastern Europe; and a lament for lost homelands, and all the other losses that ensue [...] If you love the Beats, you may find yourself loving Yelena Moskovich's night in Berlin even more * Times Literary Supplement *Moskovich is the master of silky, slinky sentences that run in unexpected directions . . . Fact and fiction intermingle, as storytelling becomes a means of making it through the night, and a way of processing a tumultuous history * The Telegraph *Yelena Moskovich's new novel Nadezhda in the Dark might just be one of the best fiction releases of 2023 * Dazed Digital *Nadezhda in the Dark is a marvel - a spellbinding work of essayistic, poetic prose, urgent, never not surprising. Yelena Moskovich reminds us that the best novels are adventures of language and form, and acts of bearing witness to the fates of the tender body in the world -- Lauren ElkinYelena Moskovich is a true original, a literary titan, an innovator, her prose is both poetry and punk, political without any obviousness to it, pure, demented in the best possible way, and always brilliant. She is one of my favourite living writers -- Jenni FaganCosmic and intimate, reading Nadezhda in the Dark is like tumbling through jewelled galaxies of words. There is tender grief and love in the negative space between its dazzling stars; and rays of turbulent history refracted through a turbulent mind and body. Easily one of the greatest writers to ever dance on our scorched, collapsing plane of reality -- Tom Benn * award-winning author of OXBLOOD *Yelena Moskovich writes the page on fire. Meandering, marauding, tender, lacerating, and entirely alive. All of life is here, and Yelena Moskovich does it like no other -- Rosa Rankin-Gee * author of DREAMLAND *Nadezhda in the Dark is a stunning read. It is beautiful and important and made me laugh and cry. If you read one book this year, it must be this one -- Camilla Grudova * author of CHILDREN OF PARADISE *A dazzling moonlit and deeply shadowed book, Nadezhda in the Dark draws out personal landscapes in the hopeless, war-wreckage of the now, the self against and within the unreachable and contradictory past. In its lovers, sitting in stillness together, it threads twin veins of queer love and queer angst. A novel that sings low and sinks teeth - is there anyone out there who is doing it like Yelena Moskovich right now? -- Helen McClory * author of BITTERHALL and THE GOLDBLUM VARIATIONS *Nadezhda in the Dark is a poem of a novel, a threnody of a paean, everything it takes to be human genrefucked and writhing on the page. Lyrical and lawless, Yelena Moskovich dares you to keep picking at the ingrown hair of love and see what erupts. 'I don't know any culture / that mixes party time with despair / as well as the Slavs' and I don't know any book like this, I have to quote it to define it, and you'll have to read it to understand -- Sonya VamtoskyMoskovich writes sentences that lilt and slink, her plots developing as a slow seduction and then clouding like a smoke-filled room * Guardian *Moskovich's prose radiates with heat * Financial Times *We don't often see writing like this: genuinely subversive and innovative * Guardian *Prose that reads as heady yet ephemeral as smoke * Independent *

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Book SynopsisOver the course of ten years, Freeman's has introduced the English-speaking world to countless writers of international import and acclaim, from Olga Tokarczuk to Valeria Luiselli, while also spotlighting brilliant writers working in English, from Tommy Orange to Tess Gunty. Now, in its last issue, this unique literary project ponders all the ways of reaching a fitting conclusion.For Sayaka Murata, keeping up with the comings and goings of fashion and its changing emotional landscapes can mean being left behind, and in her poem 'Amenorrhea' Julia Alverez experiences the end of the line as menopause takes hold. Yet sometimes an end is merely a beginning, as Barry Lopez meditates while walking through the snowy Oregonian landscapes. While Chinelo Okparanta's story 'Fatu' confronts the end of a relationship under the spectre of new life, other writers look towards aging as an opportunity for rebirth, such as Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, who takes on the role of being her own elder, comforting herself in the ways that her grandmother used to. Finally, in his comic story 'Everyone at Dinner Has a Max Von Sydow Story,' Dave Eggers suggests that sometimes stories don't have neat or clean endings - that sometimes the middle is enough.With new writing from Sandra Cisneros, Colum McCann, Omar El Akkad and Mieko Kawakami, Freeman's: Conclusions is a testament to the startling power of literature to conclude in a state of beauty, fear and promise.Trade ReviewThe definitive issue of a venerated literary journal...Filled with expertly crafted stories, essays, and poems, this volume is a triumph * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *

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Book SynopsisHe arrives in the shape of Detective Inspector Stanley Low. Brilliant and bipolar. He hates everyone almost as much as he hates himself. Singapore doesn't want him, and he doesn't want to be in London. There are too many bad memories. Low is plunged into a polarised city, where xenophobia and intolerance feed screaming echo chambers. His desperate race to find a far-right serial killer will lead him to charismatic Neo-Nazi leaders, incendiary radio hosts and Met Police officers who don't appreciate the foreigner's interference. As Low confronts the darkest corners of a racist soul, the Chinese detective is the wrong face in the wrong place. But he's the right copper for the job. London is about to meet the bloody foreigner who won't walk away.Trade Review'This impressive police procedural paints an unflattering but authentic picture of the multiracial megacity.' Mark Sanderson The Times Crime Club. 'The author has a dismal view of modern Britain which might put off some readers - but his detective is a great character.' The Sun. 'Fast, tough and smart - this is crime fiction to die for'. Tony Parsons. 'Classic Raymond Chandler school with wonderfully evocative scenes of London and illuminating insights into modern, multi-racial, Britain. A real page-turner. ' Mihir Bose. 'I enjoyed this book it was well written with good pacing/flow and well-developed characters. I read this fast I could not put it down with plenty of twists to keep me guessing.' Netgalley

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Book Synopsis?I sit on the stone that will mark the bed of my bones. You?ll find the used-to-be-me, soon, flat body, washed up, wrinkly skin. No silly grin. You?ll say, What a waste of a life. Tut-tut sounds jump out. Dangle like worms from your crow?s mouth ...?Meet Daft Matt, the Mayo man at the heart of this astonishing, form-bending story, as he wanders the streets of Castlebar in search of Devil?s feet ? the claw marks of the cága, or jackdaws, who have spoken to him since he was a boy.Yet Matt is anything but daft. In lyrical prose, Walsh Donnelly explores the complex workings of Matt?s inner life: how he deals with the loss of his twin brother as a child, navigates the carefree days of early manhood and copes with the aftermath of the horse-riding accident that would see him incarcerated in the care system for the next thirty years. Richly imagined and beautifully written, this is a story for anyone who chooses to look beyond the surface of things.?I used to think those claws were the only things that kept me above sea-level.?

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Book SynopsisRe?ections, poems, prayers and other liturgical resources written by those supporting refugees in their communities and by refugees themselves. The large-scale movement of refugees across the world is a matter of urgent humanitarian concern. This book reflects on the Christian requirement to act justly and deal rightly with the stranger in our midst, and further, on seeking the face of Christ in each person, the Christ forced as an infant into exile. The book is dedicated to the memory of all who have undertaken the perilous journey from their homelands, and have not lived. Rosemary Power is a writer who has volunteered in the refugee camps of northern France. She has worked professionally in church ministry, the voluntary sector and as an academic.

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Book Synopsis"A genuine tour-de-force" - Lesley McDowell on 'An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful'. Palestine, 1920s. Working as an agent for one of the richest men in the world, Polish-Jewish immigrant Lev Sela finds himself swept into a relationship with Celia Kahn, a mesmerising Scottish pioneer, after stumbling upon a strategic area of land that doesn’t exist on any map. An outstanding historical novel, The Land Agent brims with passion, tension and conflicting ideals, and is populated with an extraordinary cast of characters reflecting the melting pot of the era. Effortlessly navigating the labyrinths of its time and place, it evokes a troubled, yet beautiful land.Trade Review"A beautifully-made historical novel. In its fast-moving and accessible storytelling, in its emotional punch, and in its brilliantly-realised evocation of a time and place.”“Has the swift fluency of a master storyteller." -- Ian Stephen * Northwords Now *Bernard Malamud meets Hilary Mantel… This is succinct, thoroughly absorbing storytelling, which casts… light on the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A timely, terrific novel by a writer at the very top of his game. -- David BelbinAn historical novel big on romance and contemporary relevance. The Land Agent creates a vivid picture of Jewish Palestine in its original state, when the idealism of socialist settlers competed with the more hardnosed vision of Zionists for how to build the future homeland. -- Michael Goldfarb

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Book Synopsis'A work of gorgeous, enduring prose' Washington Post 'Luminously elegiac stories... Complex and rueful... gives voice to internal struggles, catalogues of loss' New York Times Book Review A modern classic of American fiction: a haunting collection of stories that explore the lost loves and complex desires of Chinese-American immigrant families The novella and five stories that make up this collection tell of displaced lives, and exiled imaginations. Far away from their ancestral home, a grandmother tells her granddaughters stories of their river ancestors. Having relocated to the American Midwest, a young couple purposefully drive all remnants of their lives in China into the shadows. In the title novella, a woman recounts her tragic marriage to an exiled musician, whose own disappointments nearly destroy their two daughters. In exquisitely crisp, spare and subtle prose, Lan Samantha Chang untangles how an immigrant can hunger for love, for acceptance, and for what they have left behind. An undeniable classic of modern American literature, Hunger is a haunting collection of stories, suffused with quiet beauty and longing. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the award-winning books Hunger and Inheritance, and the novel All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. Her work has been translated into nine languages and has been chosen twice for The Best American Short Stories. A recent Berlin Prize winner, she has received creative writing fellowships from Stanford University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Samantha lives in Iowa City, where she is director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her most recent novel, The Family Chao, is also published by Pushkin Press and was one of Barack Obama's Books of Summer 2022.Trade Review'Luminously elegiac stories... Complex and rueful, her fiction gives voices to internal struggles, catalogues of loss' - New York Times Book Review'Her stories are most delicately and precisely written, and almost unendurably sad. However, there's compensation of a kind in the unobtrusive courage of the women she writes about' - Penelope Fitzgerald'A work of gorgeous, enduring prose' - Washington Post'Spare and haunting tales that ask ordinary questions about that extraordinary emotion: love' - Chicago Tribune'Intelligent in concept and stylishly executed'' - Tatler

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Book Synopsis'A gripping tale of homecoming and loss... ruthlessly honest and startlingly beautiful... profound and unforgettable' Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King 'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious. We have a powerful new voice in Maya Binyam, one who knows how to make a story sing' Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun 'A subtle and peculiar novel about subtle and peculiar things - home, exile, injustice, family, return and life itself... a remarkable book' Keith Ridgway, author of A Shock 'A strikingly masterful debut... a clean, sharp, piercing - and deeply political novel' Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows __________ A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country, or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him - a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying. Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangley honest story of one man's search for refuge - in this world and the one that lies beyond it. An existential journey, a tragic farce, a slapstick tragedy: Hangman is the shockingly original debut novel about exile, diaspora and the search for Black refuge, from a thrilling new literary voiceTrade Review'Hangman is a subtle and peculiar novel about subtle and peculiar things - home, exile, injustice, family, return, and life itself. Binyam has written a remarkable book - one that builds, beautifully, a world that feels true, while dismantling the world that feels real' - Keith Ridgway, author of A Shock'A strikingly masterful debut. With a slow, sure hand, Hangman beckons you into a zone that at first seems as clear, as blank, and as eerily sunny as the pane of a window. Then it traps you there, until you notice the blots, bubbles, and fissures in the glass-and then the frame itself, then the shatter. A clean, sharp, piercing-and deeply political-novel' - Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious, Hangman is the rare book agile enough to balance the surreality and painfully rigid actuality of life. We have a powerful new voice in Maya Binyam, one who knows how to make a story sing.' - Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun'Hangman is a gripping story of homecoming and loss, of recuperation and letting go, all of it told in a voice that is at turns ruthlessly honest and startlingly beautiful. Maya Binyam is an immensely gifted writer and every page of this deeply moving novel offers us compelling and hard-earned truths. But what remains by the end is something that resembles a loving gesture from a long-lost relative: necessary and seismic, profound and unforgettable' - Maaza Mengiste, author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted The Shadow King'Maya Binyam exquisitely captures unseen forces: the edges of consciousness, abstract political forces, and how they act on one another. Hangman is immersive and astonishing' - Tavi Gevinson'Maya Binyam's controlled blend of surreal whimsy and unsettling existential dread makes this a remarkably assured and distinctive debut' -TLS

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Book SynopsisIt was the middle of the nineteenth century when Lafanu Brown audaciously decided to become an artist. In the wake of the American Civil War, life was especially tough for Black women, but she didn't let that stop her. The daughter of a Native American woman and an African-Haitian man, Lafanu had the rare opportunity to study, travel, and follow her dreams, thanks to her indomitable spirit, but not without facing intolerance and violence. Now, in 1887, living in Rome as one of the city's most established painters, she is ready to tell her fiance about her difficult life, which began in a poor family forty years earlier. In 2019, an Italian art curator of Somali origin is desperately trying to bring to Europe her younger cousin, who is only sixteen and has already tried to reach Italy on a long, treacherous journey. While organizing an art exhibition that will combine the paintings of Lafanu Brown with the artworks of young migrants, the curator becomes more and more obsessed with the life and secrets of the nineteenth-century painter.Weaving together these two vibrant voices, Igiaba Scego has crafted a powerful exploration of what it means to be "other," to be a woman, and particularly a Black woman, in a foreign country, yesterday and today.Trade Review'A testament to the possibilities of liberation that rest in every act against injustice, and in every moment of artistic creation' [Maaza Mengiste]; 'In its reckoning with racism and colonialism. The Colour Line explores the potential for artists to reclaim line and colour in the name of justice' [Selby Wynn Schwartz]; 'An engrossing tale of ambition, survival, and love' [Publishers Weekly]; 'An intense and evocative book about the lasting traumas of racial injustice, the healing power of creativity, and the importance of representation in history' [Ruth Ben-Ghiat]

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of the prize-winning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes a remarkable ‘unreliable biography’ of Karl Kjerúlf Einarsson: an artist and an adventurer, a charlatan and a swindler, forever in search of Atlantis. As a child in the windswept, fog-bound Faroe Islands in the late nineteenth century, Karl Einarsson believes he is special, destined for a life of art and adventure. As soon as he can, he sets out for Copenhagen and beyond, styling himself as the Count of St. Kilda. He’s an observer and citizen of nowhere, a serial swindler of aristocrats and Nazis, fishermen and fops. But when his adventures find him in 1930s Berlin, he is forced for the first time to reckon with something much bigger than himself. As the Nazis rise to power around him, his wilful ignorance becomes unwitting complicity, even betrayal. Based on a true story, this is a fantastical tale of island life, of those who leave and those who stay behind, and the many dangers of delusions and false identities.Trade Review'From the first line I know I’m in the hands of a bard and consummate storyteller. The writing is lyrical and hugely descriptive … The history is rich and fascinating.' * Historical Novels Review *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Leipzig Book Fair Prize Longlisted for the 2022 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger Shortlisted for the 2022 Prix Femina etranger #1 on the Spiegel Bestseller List November 1989. The Berlin Wall has just fallen when the East German couple Inge und Walter, following a secret dream they've harboured all their lives, set out for life in the West. Carl, their son, refuses to keep watch over the family home and instead heads to Berlin, where he lives in his father's car until he is taken in by a group of squatters. Led by a shepherd and his goat, the pack of squatters sets up the first alternative bar in East Berlin and are involved in guerrilla occupations. And it's with them that Carl, trained as a bricklayer, finds himself an initiate of anarchy, of love, and above all of poetry. Winner of the prestigious Leipzig Book Fair Prize and a bestseller in German already with 150,000 copies sold, Star 111, musical and incantatory, tells of the search for authentic existence and also of a family exploded by political change which must find its way back together.Trade Review‘There aren’t many books that can be cited as the missing link between Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries and Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, and still fewer that could live up to the comparison, but Lutz Seiler (with impeccable assistance from Tess Lewis) makes it look easy. Star 111 is a brilliant, immersive, sometimes funny, slyly moving book with a main character who walks through the new reality he finds himself in like an astronaut exploring alone beneath a strange, harsh, beautiful sun. A stellar achievement.’ Will Ashon ---- 'It took Lutz Seiler, born in East Germany, thirty years to give to the moment [of the Fall of the Berlin Wall] the full richness of fertile and ambiguous human experience. With its ample narrative and powerful imagination, Star 111 is the "Wenderoman" par excellence, the great novel of the "turn", as German reunification is called.' Christine Lecerf, Le Monde des livres ---- 'The Berlin of Star 111 wakes a longing for a city like no other. You want to linger there in the squatted Assel bar where workers, hookers and departing Soviet soldiers cross paths with anarchists full of ideas.' Frederique Fanchette, Liberation ---- 'The presence of objects have is no doubt one of the most extraordinary things about Star 111. Everything is unique, everything has a price, everything is respected because it is the fruit of work or of making. Nothing is thrown away, everything kept. What if the objects have a soul? Read Star 111 (the title is the name of an East German transistor radio) and understand the real value of an object.' Cecile Dutheil de la Rochere, AOC ---- 'Lutz Seiler reaches the level of a Thomas Pynchon here. [...] This is atmospherically rich, true world literature. World literature is, after all, that which lets me see the world with different eyes, which shows me a part of the world I have not seen before. And this is what Seiler manages to do in Star 111.' Denis Scheck, SWR lesenswert ---- 'Star 111 reveals the fiery nucleus of everything political, its dual nature: the unity of poetic rapture and the mysticism of the revolution. [...] Lutz Seiler has the ability to describe the ridiculous, overheated and even the unconscionable of that political romanticism without having to denounce the original impulse. That's what makes Star 111 great literature.' Ijoma Mangold, Die Zeit ---- 'Star 111 is a novel full of hard-hitting, deeply moving psychology, full of scenes in which people shake the foundations of a reality that is in the process of creating new laws for itself.' Paul Jandl, Neue Zurcher Zeitung ---- 'The [goat in the novel], the reader understands, knows neither longing nor nostalgia. The fact that the novel shares, in this regard, the view of a goat, is its last and biggest virtue.' Thomas Steinfeld, Suddeutsche Zeitung ---- 'For the second time now Lutz Seiler has achieved something rather extraordinary: to talk about how one actually leads a poetic existence, a matter that is as euphoric as it is cruel, in a novel that is "accessible" in the best sense of the word.' Jan Wiele, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ---- 'Lutz Seiler talks about a city and a time that seemed to have been exhausted in fiction. But he creates a new fascination.' Jona Nietfeld, Der Tagesspiegel ---- 'It has been a long time since anyone has talked about those foggy years, glossed over with garish colours by other writers scores of times, more movingly than Lutz Seiler.' Anja Maier, die tageszeitung ---- 'Seiler tells a story of freedom in a poetically-precise style.' Der Spiegel ---- 'This is much more than a historical novel. It condenses an era and invokes the great panoramas of consciousness of modernity in a highly independent way.' Helmut Boettiger, Deutschlandfunk Kultur ---- 'This unexpected novel about post-reunification from the partially decayed, far from gentrified Berlin convinces with its unique atmospheric density, its gentle irony and the devotion to the matter at hand.' Bayerischer Rundfunk ---- 'With Star 111, Lutz Seiler presents a great novel that talks enchantingly about departures and downfalls, about social utopias and societal realities, about humiliation and pride. Fascinating.' Katja Weise, NDR Kultur ---- 'What distinguishes it from the many Berlin-Reunification-books is that there is not a trace of caricature, no manipulative narrative, but still captivating entertainment.' Roland Gutsch, Nordkurier ---- ‘Drawing on a history at once recent and ever more distant, Seiler's dazzling novel recounts just what must be lost for an artist to be made.’ Roland Bates, Kirkdale Books

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Book SynopsisThis is not the Garden of Eden, but it is my patch of heaven. Steal my apples. Come and get them. When an asylum seeker is discovered sleeping rough at an allotment site, the plot-holders are alarmed and hostile. However, in secret, Walter begins to leave out food for Osama. Thus, a friendship begins on a garden bench, between a grieving widower and an asylum seeker on the run from the authorities. Walter is rooted in his home city; Osama belongs nowhere. Walter has a safe and routine life; Osama’s life is uncertain, risky and vulnerable. Walter feels powerless to help him, while at the same time he struggles to understand his own daughters and their lives. Then, one day, Walter discovers Osama is not who he says he is…

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Book SynopsisMaka, a young Bosnian soldier, has survived three years under siege. When the enemy forces launch their final attack on his hometown, he must escape to the hills. But traversing the vast woods is a task against all odds: to stay alive, and to find his infant son and his wife, he is soon forced to make a desperate move. Set against the harrowing background of raging guerrilla warfare and the genocide in Srebrenica, Father of One is, at heart, a story of deep humanity, compassion and love. It is the account of one man’s desire to reunite his family, separated by war, and of bonds unbroken by trauma, sustained by loyalty and tenacity. Writing in a voice that rings with clarity and authenticity, the author lays open a dark moment in Europe’s recent history.

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Book SynopsisLondon is angry, divided and obsessed with foreigners. A dead Asian and some racist graffiti in Chinatown might trigger the race war that the white supremacists of the Make England Great Again movement have been hoping for. They just need a tipping point. And he arrives in the shape of Detective Inspector Stanley Low. He's brilliant. He's bipolar. He hates everyone almost as much as he hates himself. Singapore doesn't want him and he doesn't want to be in London for a criminology lecture. There are too many bad memories, like Detective Sergeant Ramila Mistry, who asks for Low's help. The dead Asian was Singaporean. Against everyone's better judgement, Low is plunged into a polarised city, where xenophobia and intolerance feed screaming echo chambers. His desperate race to find a far-right serial killer will lead him to charismatic Neo-Nazi leaders, incendiary radio hosts and Metropolitan Police officers who don't appreciate the foreigner's interference. No one wants him there, but too many victims with Asian faces keep him there. He craves vengeance, particularly when the murderer makes it personal and promises to kill the only woman that Low ever loved. The Chinese detective is the wrong face in the wrong place. But he's the right copper for the job. London is about to meet the bloody foreigner who won't walk away.Trade Review'This impressive police procedural paints an unflattering but authentic picture of the multiracial megacity.' Mark Sanderson The Times Crime Club. 'The author has a dismal view of modern Britain which might put off some readers - but his detective is a great character.' The Sun. 'Fast, tough and smart - this is crime fiction to die for'. Tony Parsons. 'Classic Raymond Chandler school with wonderfully evocative scenes of London and illuminating insights into modern, multi-racial, Britain. A real page-turner. ' Mihir Bose. 'I enjoyed this book it was well written with good pacing/flow and well-developed characters. I read this fast I could not put it down with plenty of twists to keep me guessing.' Netgalley

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Book SynopsisA collection of 36 short stories from a Raqqa, Syria native whose home was commandeered by ISIS and later destroyed by coalition airstrikes.Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the grips of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the uncertainties of war . . . he presents his stories as the response of one still-same voice in the midst of madness.Musa Al-Halool’s stories depict a Kafkaesque Middle Eastern world. The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled Ratistan . . . or the country of Rats. These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.The Dusk Visitor is an object lesson for Western readers. In just a few words, it invokes the warnings of Ernest Hemingway about the dangers of Fascism in 1920s Italy and the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s . . . that resulted in WWII. The author shows in compelling detail that Middle East dictators and the upside down world of security state rule in the Middle East are the reward for functioning civil societies where a few too many ”good people” find it more convenient to collaborate rather than to resist.Western readers, in their arrogance, are accustomed to pity such dysfunctional societies. In The Dusk Visitor, the tables are turned. Musa Al-Halool forces us to look in the mirror: Middle Eastern style comical inanity and inefficiency as well as torture, mass murder, and other human rights horrors are just around the corner for the EU, UK, US, and other societies where it is OK to raise half-truths, lies, and exaggeration above traditional journalism, dilute the judiciary, gerrymander the election system, usher in strongmen who prefer to be rulers for life, and threaten legal action against one’s political opponents.The Dusk Visitor is a MUST-READ for anyone concerned about the growth of subtle and overt fascism within modern civil society.

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