Narrative theme: politics / economics

Book SynopsisThe English-language debut of a master stylist: a compassionate but relentless novel about the long, dark harvest of Brazil's totalitarian ruleTrade Review"I Didn’t Talk is a cheeky and patient book, gently confronting pain without sacrificing wit, a book which merges together a fraught past and an uncertain future." -- Commonplace Review"Beatriz Bracher: intense and precise." -- Folha de S.Paulo"Crisp, dizzying." -- Jornal do Brasil"Pensive novel of political terror and its consequences, set in the shadow of post-junta Brazil....A slender but memorable contribution to the literature of crime and (sometimes self-inflicted) punishment." -- Kirkus"Published in Brazil on the 40th anniversary of the Golpe de 64, I Didn’t Talk can be read as one of many novelistic catalogs of 20th-century atrocities. As with the works of W. G. Sebald and Patrick Modiano, this is a slim, dense novel that lingers in the eddies of personal memory and historical reckoning." -- Los Angeles Review of Books"Above all, it's the writing that shines in I Didn't Talk. Bracher, along with translator Morris, handles immensely difficult subjects beautifully, with language that's sometimes spare, sometimes elaborate, but always gorgeous. It's a novel that's intelligent but not showy, and Bracher's restraint makes the story all the more potent. And the story is an important one. I Didn't Talk isn't just about one emotionally bruised man; it's about the lasting effects of violence, and the way cruelty causes its victims to torture themselves." -- NPR"Extraordinary force and beauty—also a reflection on the construction of memory and the power of the tale." -- O Estado de S. Paulo"Brazil’s Bracher arrives in English with this brilliant, enigmatic rumination...Bracher is a force to be reckoned with and has crafted a haunting, powerful novel." -- Publishers Weekly (starred)""Brazil’s “ghosts” refuse to stay buried, and they haunt the narrator of Bracher’s novel."" -- Lisa Mullenneaux - The Critical Flame"Bracher’s novel examines the way in which stories give shape and meaning to the unknowable, and resists the notion that one definitive version of history can or should impose meaning on the past." -- Tristen Harwood - The Monthly"Bracher’s story abounds with narrative and thematic contradictions and encompasses everything from the gulf between our own self-image and how others perceive us to the flaws that can arise when one attempts to apply literary analysis to a life. The resulting narrative is unpredictable and its dissonances resonate powerfully." -- Tobias Carroll - Words Without Borders"While the central question—did Gustavo give away his brother-in-law?—serves as a locus for the book, it is really an extended meditation on a variety of topics: the (un)reliability of memory, the meaning of education, the way members of families see one another, and the crushing impact of the dictatorship years on generations past and present. Translator Adam Morris deftly renders Bracher’s conversational style, chasing Gustavo as he skips from one topic to another, lost in the haze of memory." -- World Literature Today

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Book SynopsisIn a political culture infused with debates about personal liberties, the role of government, and even the definition of freedom itself, Haymaker tells the story of an isolated Michigan town that becomes the flashpoint for some of the principal ideological debates of our day. When a libertarian organization selects the town as its flagship community, hundreds of its members migrate and settle within the town''s borders. The resulting clash with local townspeople is violent and impassioned, even as the line that divides the two sides increasingly blurs.The story follows characters on both of these sides: an eccentric millionaire known as The Man in White, who is still viewed as an outsider even after living in Haymaker for thirty years; a policewoman trained in hostage and suicide negotiations who questions raising children in this new environment; a teenage girl devoted to basketball and her desire to leave home, who has a close but complicated relationship with her unTrade ReviewThoughtful fiction with an unusual political twist on the theme of insiders vs. outsiders. * Kirkus Reviews *A read to pair with classic works of Paine, maybe a bit of Orwell and most certainly with Rand, Schuitema's first novel resonates as a real-life American example of the current and changing state of democracy, and what real Americans across demographics believe that term to mean. Yet, it reads as an engaging short story with a weaving, character-driven plot and not a word out of place. * Chicago Book Review *Haymaker is an entertaining book for people who like a little politics in their fiction. * National Review *Haymaker is as dazzling and overpowering as a Michigan winter and a powerful debut into the world of novel writing. * Rain Taxi *Schuitema has crafted a description of contemporary small-town life that is easily transferred anywhere in the United States.... A flat-out good read. * Foreword Reviews *

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Book SynopsisAfter experiencing life in London, the narrator and her brother discover that they are Canadians, not colonials. Their encounters with Englishmen and Americans demonstrate that there are three distinct countries, each with a character of its own, but sharing common interests. This is an early novel on the eternal theme of identity.

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Book Synopsis'This book has a twofold meaning,' writes the author, '— that of  a political novel, and that of the portrayal of a great love and a  religious drama.' One of the most interesting Canadian novels of the period 1880 to 1920, it depicts conditions in Canada during an era when the country was in a state of transition,' that is, prior to the last election during John A. Macdonald's administration.

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Book SynopsisTranslation of nineteenth-century novel of life in a still-feudal Moravian village. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) is Austria's most important nineteenth-century woman writer, but her works have remained largely unknown to English speakers, even her most important, the compelling Their Pavel, firstpublished serially in 1887. Based on a true incident, Their Pavel investigates the troubled social relations of a Moravian village that is endowed with the right of local governance but steeped in the habits of its feudalrelationship to the local barony. The novel explores the parallel fates of the children of a hanged murderer and thief. Milada, the appealing and alert daughter, is adopted on a whim by the aging baroness, while Pavel, the awkwardand taciturn son, is thrown upon the uncertain mercy of the village, but both suffer the stigma of their father's crime. In her sometimes grimly humorous picture of village life, the author spares neither the Catholic Church northe landed aristocracy nor the villagers themselves. Lynne Tatlock is Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Washington Universityin St. Louis.Trade ReviewEbner-Eschenbach's story of the slow and indefatigable rise of the orphaned son of an executed murderer, who is reared by his village only out of a sense of its legal obligation, is consistent with prevailing Victorian and Hapsburg era literary tastes. This highly readable rendition preserves both the spirit and the tenor of the original. Not a book just for students and scholars of literature, readers of all backgrounds and tastes should enjoy it. * CHOICE *Still captivates the reader... * SEMINAR *Tatlock succeeded admirably in paralleling the native idiom to reflect the local setting by flavoring her English text in changing moods. * GERMANIC NOTES & REVIEWS *Table of ContentsIntroduction Translator's Note Their Pavel Notes

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Book SynopsisThe Dreyfus Affair’s Literary Politics offers a new interpretation of writers’ political engagements in the crisis that ended the French nineteenth century, following the wrongful treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Émile Zola and three writers connected to him – Ferdinand Brunetière, Henry Céard and Saint-Georges de Bouhélier – drew on their affinities and antagonisms concerning Zola’s naturalist fiction to shape their political discourse in the Dreyfus Affair. Zola and Bouhélier were Dreyfusard, Brunetière and Céard anti-Dreyfusard, yet in each case they transformed a vision of what literature should be into arguments about French national identity, the proper relationship between literary and political thought, and the tensions between individual rights and raison d’état.Developing a method entitled ‘microhistories of ideas,’ Cooke shows that a longitudinal approach to each writer’s career yields a set of central unit-ideas that reappear in the new, emotive context of the Affair. Through close readings of material such as pamphlets, newspaper columns and aesthetic essays, the significance of often ephemeral writing to the larger questions of intellectual history – and to the outcome of the Dreyfus Affair itself - becomes clear.Trade Review"The significance of this approach is to highlight the importance of esthetic considerations in this—and potentially other—political debates rather than making art the handmaiden of political discourse. I think this is not only original, but could become a model for scholars studying literary politics in other times and places."Robert A. Nye, Oregon State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: Microhistories of Ideas and the Dreyfus AffairConcise Chronology1. The Prehistory of ‘J’Accuse…!’: Zola’s Career as Critic2. Beyond ‘J’Accuse…!’: Zola in the Dreyfus Affair3. Against Zola and Individualism: Ferdinand Brunetière from Literary Critic to anti-Dreyfusard4. Saint-Georges de Bouhélier, Dreyfusard malgré lui5. Henry Céard Reads the Dreyfus AffairConclusionBibliography

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Book SynopsisDisheveled and in a panic, the senator swears that he’s about to be murdered and pleads with Jack to protect his wife Taylor, who happens to be the only woman Jack has ever truly loved.Days later, Phillips is found dead in a hotel room in Micronesia, the apparent victim of an allergy attack.Trade Review“Readers with a taste for action thrillers will best appreciate this one.” -- Publishers WeeklyA staccato-paced series opener that will appeal to readers seeking conspiracy-laced thrillers.” -- Booklist“Once you start reading, you’ll be hooked.” -- Suspense Magazine “This is mandatory reading for any thriller aficionado.” -- Steve Berry, New York Times Bestselling Author“Washington power plays, Supreme Court intrigue, religious relics, and a chase for the ages. Fans of Brad Meltzer and James Rollins will love L.C. Shaw’s THE NETWORK.” -- Anthony Franze, author of The Outsider“There are books that keep you up at night, and there are books that keep you up all night — L.C. Shaw’s THE NETWORK is the latter. Sophisticated, suspenseful, and unpredictable, Shaw’s deft plotting and breakneck pacing set the standard for the modern political thriller. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Absolutely electrifying.” -- Jennifer Hillier, USA Today bestselling author of Jar of Hearts“Shaw’s blistering pacing, compelling drama, and tight prose mesh together to create an unputdownable read. Journalist Jack Logan rips down the curtain masking one of mankind’s oldest secrets in an all-out battle for the human soul. Tune into THE NETWORK for the gritty news of today—and yesterday. Breathtaking.” -- K.J. Howe, international bestselling author of SKYJACK“THE NETWORK offers a superb blend of a political, speculative, and action thriller. Lynne Constantine manages this delicate balancing act with a skill and aplomb that is both a throwback to Robert Ludlum and testament to Dan Brown. The kind of tale Alfred Hitchcock would have loved to adapt and thriller lovers are certain to devour.” -- Jon Land, USA Today bestselling author"With a decades-old cabal, ancient relic, conspiracy, action, and twists, THE NETWORK delivers on the goods. The result: an addicting read that keep you up long past bedtime." -- Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author“The Network” is thriller-writing at its best: a sinister conspiracy with international power, a pulse-pounding chase to save the world, an unlikely romance with heart-wrenching complications, and one mysterious hero to untangle it all. Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan, watch out! Jack Logan is hot on your trail.” -- Allison Leotta, author of The Last Good Girl“Political intrigue, religious artifacts, great characters, and plot twists galore. You will not be able to put THE NETWORK down.” -- DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly and Cain/Harper thriller series“Wow! Talented storyteller L.C. Shaw has perfected the vacation-airplane-beach read! Unfailingly entertaining, riveting, and breathtakingly timely—you will absolutely devour this thrilling and cautionary tale. Attention, Hollywood: this one has blockbuster written all over it.” -- Hank Phillippi Ryan, nationally bestselling author of The Murder List“THE NETWORK is a thriller with all the right ingredients: power-drunk capitalists, corrupt politicians, existential moral questions, and global conspiracies spawning life-or-death consequences. Add into the mix well-crafted characters and the result is a recipe for success. With Shaw’s breakneck pacing, intricate twists, and constant cliffhangers, thriller fans will blaze though this book in one sitting.” -- Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author

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Book Synopsis“A twisty, nonstop conspiracy thriller that only has one gear: high! The Network delivers.” —Andrew Gross, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author “This is mandatory reading for any thriller aficionado.” —Steve Berry, New York Times Bestselling AuthorA pulse-pounding, page-turning thriller involving corruption, secrets, and lies at the very deepest levels of government and media.A shadowy group is manipulating society—and they’ve only just begun.Late one night, investigative journalist Jack Logan receives a surprise visit from U.S. Senator Malcolm Phillips at his New York apartment. Disheveled and in a panic, the senator swears that he’s about to be murdered and pleads with Jack to protect his wife Taylor, who happens to be the only woman Jack has ever truly loved.Days later, Phillips is found dead in a hotel room in

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE JANET HEIGINGER KAFKA PRIZE FOR FICTION“The novel showcases the humanity, tragedy, and complexity of life in the West Bank. . . . The characters’ interwoven lives will stay with you long after the book''s denouement.”  —Entertainment Weekly“Sacks is an extraordinarily gifted writer whose intelligence, compassion and skill on both the sentence and tension level rise to meet her ambition. She keeps us constantly on edge. . . . City of a Thousand Gates makes a convincing case for a literature of multiplicity, polyphonic and clamorous, abuzz with challenges and contradictions, with no clear answers but a promise to stay alert to the world, in all its peril and vitality.”  —Washington PostBrave and bold, this gorgeously written novel introduces a large cast of characters from various backgrounds in a setting where violence is routine and where survival is defined by boundaries, walls, and checkpoints that force people to live and love within and across them.Hamid, a college student, has entered Israeli territory illegally for work. Rushing past soldiers, he bumps into Vera, a German journalist headed to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem, a Palestinian boy beaten into a coma by a group of revenge-seeking Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital, Vera runs in front of a car that barely avoids hitting her. The driver is Ido, a new father traveling with his American wife and their baby. Ido is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered by a terrorist who infiltrated her settlement. Ori, a nineteen-year-old soldier from a nearby settlement, is guarding the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem through which Samar—Hamid’s professor—must pass. These multiple strands open this magnificent and haunting novel of present-day Israel and Palestine, following each of these diverse characters as they try to protect what they love. Their interwoven stories reveal complicated, painful truths about life in this conflicted land steeped in hope, love, hatred, terror, and blood on both sides.City of a Thousand Gates brilliantly evokes the universal drives that motivate these individuals to think and act as they do—desires for security, for freedom, for dignity, for the future of one’s children, for land that each of us, no matter who or where we are, recognize and share. 

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Killens has read his Shakespeare. With the surprises in its plot and its quadrilles of mistaken identities, ‘The Minister Primarily’ is right up there with ‘The Tempest’ and ‘The Comedy of Errors.’ The choreography of his set pieces has an effulgent warmth that is as passionately expressed as it is disarming, creeping up on the reader with such skill you hardly realize you’re being stalked by a master." — The New York Times Book Review "Killens casts a broad net, skewering everything from the heady early days of African independence to the pan-Africanism of the period among Black Americans, and, most sharply, race relations in the United States. This is a brilliantly scathing, outrageous satire as important today as when it was written." — Library Journal (starred review) “The Minister Primarily is not only a brilliantly imagined work of fiction, it is also a side-splittingly funny tale. In this newly discovered last novel, Killens’ puts on his literary fabulist hat and hands us a rich, unforgettable tale packed with ribald, humorous scenes, and wacky characters. Read this book, you will never forget it!” — Quincy Troupe, author of andMiles and Me “John O. Killens inspired many writers, myself included. Killens is a genius at his craft. He taught it, he perfected it. And Killens' mastery of satire, (please read The Cotillion as well) is on full display in his last novel. His dialogue is as clever and sly as ever.” — Tina McElroy Ansa, The Hand I Fan With and Taking After Mudear “John Oliver Killens’ The Minister Primarily highlights his exceptional skills in the use of dialogue, irony and satire. The novel is ultimately a parody of American, African and European presidents and political leaders and an exposé of the hypocrisy and exploitation generated by colonialism in Africa. His use of humor and adaptation of the trope of the trickster for his protagonist are reminiscent of Ishmael Reed, Charles W. Chestnutt, and Ralph Ellison.” — Dr. Brenda M. Greene, Founder & Executive Director, Center for Black Literature, Medgar Evers College, CUNY “It is good to see another work by Baba John Killens, a master of voice illuminating everything that stumbles within range of his biting irony and expansive literary heart. The Minister Primarily reminds us why John Killens occupies such a unique place in literature. Read The Minister Primarily and you too will understand the joy of ‘found work’ by Baba John Killens, the Great Griot Master of Brooklyn at the top of his satiric game.” — Arthur Flowers, author of The Hoodoo Book of Flowers: The Great Black Book of Generations “The absurd situation gives Killens a perfect vantage from which to satirize international race relations.” — The New Yorker “Vividly and skillfully written, this vibrant, long-missing novel, published 34 years after the death of this Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, civil rights activist, and key figure in the Black Arts Movement, is certain to be a timeless classic of satirical fiction.” — Booklist (starred review) "An audacious final testament of an underappreciated craftsman." — Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisA PopSugar Best Book of the Year!Readers of Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen’s Gambit won’t want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice.Maria Florkowska is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and, as a member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a young woman brave beyond her years. Captured by the Gestapo, she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, but while her family is sent to their deaths, she is spared. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Karl Fritzsch, decides to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of exploiting her skills, he ha

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Book Synopsis‘Look after your sister, Tinashe.’ When Hazvinei was born, Tinashe knew at once that there was something different about her. Tinashe is prepared to follow his sister anywhere – but how far can he go to keep her safe when the forces threatening her are so much darker and more sinister than he suspected?Trade ReviewEames conveys a strong sense of political turmoil enflamed by sinister witch doctors, brutal guerilla factions and superstitious misogyny…compelling. -- Alfred Hickling * Guardian *An extraordinarily drawn tale. * Book Trust *Eames is a lovely writer -- Lesley McDowell * Independent on Sunday *One of the most beautifully written, sad, magical yet clear-eyed novels I've read by any author for many years * Wales Arts Review *The book blends folklore and superstition perfectly with accessible language, relatable characters, believable dialogue and a fast-paced, well-structured plot...yet another powerful piece of writing. * For Book's Sake *

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Book SynopsisThe pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time.A Penguin ClassicA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice/Staff PickVulture's Ten Best Books of 2020 pickBuried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly froTrade ReviewClaude McKay's poetry was one of the great forces in bringing about what is often called the 'Negro Literary Renaissance' -- James Weldon JohnsonI loved Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille, so witty and so precise, a little instrument for imagining another kind of modernist history -- Adam Thirlwell * The White Review *

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Book SynopsisNamed One of the Best Books of the Year by VOGUE and VOX. The Free Press's August Book Club pick. A 'very funny, very good' (B. J. Novak) debut novel about a graduate student who follows her disgraced mentor to a university that gives safe harbor to scholars of ill repute, igniting a crisis of work and a test of her conscience (and marriage) Helen is one of the brightest minds of her generation: a young physicist on a path to solve high-temperature superconductivity (which could save the planet). When she discovers that her brilliant adviser is involved in a sex scandal, Helen is torn: should she give up on her work with him? Or should she accompany him to a controversial university, founded by a provocateur billionaire, that hosts academics other schools have thrown out?   Helen decides she must go—her work is too important. She brings along her partner, Hew, who is much less sanguine about living on an island where t

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Book Synopsis“Readers who are hungry for heartwarming comedy and spicy D.C. gossip will find Lipman’s new novel absolutely delicious.”—New York Times Book Review  A mischievous political satire, with a delightful cast of characters, from one of America’s funniest novelists.Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump. As she is escorted off the premises she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call a personal friend of the President. Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside? Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking room-mates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the President, and unexpected love at the local wine store. But secrets le

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Book Synopsis“A towering and multilayered gem.” —NoViolet BulawayoTrade Review"Be prepared to laugh, shed tears, and marvel." -- Yiyun Li - Vanity Fair"A gripping account of revolution and its aftermath." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer"Ambitious and ingenious." -- Dinaw Mengestu - New York Times Book Review"House of Stone is the novel devastated Zimbabwe needed to have written. Now Novuyo Tshuma has written it. Bayethe to her scintillating talent! In the most original and fearless prose I’ve read in years, Tshuma’s scheming narrator, Zamani, reveals the personal and political disintegration that was Zimbabwe’s undoing." -- Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions"House of Stone is that rare thing, a truly original work of art whose author’s risk-taking pays off on the page. Zamani is a complex, compelling, and ambiguous narrator. Utterly stunning." -- Tendai Huchu, author of The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician"Tshuma’s House of Stone is a devastating and inviting piece of fiction that is earning its raves as a beyond notable first novel.… Her book slips like sand through fingers through time and voice, masterfully condensing the history of Zimbabwe to the point where the back story is informative and provocative but not cumbersome.… Tshuma deftly tells a story of colonization and decolonization both with a wide focus on the nation and the tight focus on a few people. The latter serves as a tragic microcosm of the former.… Her balance between the tightest and broadest focus is admirable and efficient." -- Andrew Dansby - Houston Chronicle"To call [House of Stone] clever or ambitious is to do it a disservice—it is both, but also more than that.… Tshuma is incapable of writing a boring sentence.… By the end she has managed to not only sum up Zimbabwean history, but also all of African colonial history: from devastating colonialism to the bitter wars of independence to the euphoria of self-rule and the disillusionment of the present. It is an extraordinary achievement for a first novel." -- Helon Habila, author of Oil on Water, for the Guardian"An enthralling novel that has it all: pathos, humour, and an insightful engagement with the history of Zimbabwe. With audacious style, Tshuma manages to step over the pitfalls that would swallow a lesser talent, and in so doing announces herself as a huge talent." -- Brian Chikwava, author of Harare North"Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s epic satire House of Stone (2018) is driven by one Zamani’s almost pathological desire to replace the missing son of the Mlambo family. In Tshuma’s beautiful interweaving of personal and national history, we learn of successive generations burdened by sins of their fathers." -- Panashe Chigumadzi - Guardian"Reading House of Stone is like being punched in the stomach and tickled at the same time." -- Ranka Primorac, author of The Place of Tears

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize "Thrilling…A topical and deftly satirical novel." —Anna Mundow, Wall Street JournalTrade Review"Unputdownable. It’s 1984 for our times." -- Michael Lewis"A harrowing, brilliant, and troublingly plausible vision of the future." -- Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven"Gripping.… Few readers will stop until they reach its final page." -- Alec Nevala-Lee - New York Times Book Review"It’s not clear what it will take to finally convince us that it’s time to panic about climate change, but works of fiction such as The Wall have an important role to play." -- Stephen Dyson - Washington Post"A novel that ranks alongside Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and the oeuvre of Kim Stanley Robinson as a fictional meditation on what climate change may mean for the planet." -- Tom Holland - Guardian"A powerful thought experiment." -- Giles Harvey - New York Review of Books"An unsettling, compulsive and brilliant portrait of powerlessness." -- John Day - Financial Times"Bold and confident fiction that highlights the current American and British issues of Trumpism and Brexit. It also examines the increasingly wide social and political divide of the young and the old." -- Ant Jones - Los Angeles Times"As in all good dystopian fiction, Lanchester shows us a world that could become a reality… [He] maintains measured, elegant prose–creating an assuredly human dystopian novel." -- Lucas Wittmann - Time"Highly relevant." -- Ron Charles - Washington Post

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Book SynopsisA Boston Globe Best Book of 2019 “This is the answer to the question of what contemporary fiction can do.” —Edward Docx, GuardianTrade Review"This novel has all the weight of art with the sting of breaking news.… I loved this book. It is indeed [Helon] Habila at his best." -- Leila Aboulela, author of Elsewhere, Home"Helon Habila writes with the eye of a journalist, the tools of an artist, and the heart of a sober and compassionate witness." -- Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish"Habila has outdone himself, giving his characters the dignity which the media often fails to." -- Samira Sawlani - African Arguments"At once intimate and expansive, Travelers captivated me from the very first pages." -- Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Memory of Love"The novel’s unassuming title is suggestive of [Helon] Habila’s cool, open-minded approach to a hot-button subject. While he leaves us in little doubt of the horrors his characters have escaped, he seldom invites us to gawp. Adroitly teasing out the rich quiddity of his characters’ diverse journeys, he instead makes the simple yet valuable point that refugees’ lives are as irreducibly complex as anyone else’s." -- Anthony Cummins - Guardian"The book’s elaborate depiction of a range of personal sacrifices brings into focus the human tragedies obscured by statistics and discussions of public policy." -- The New Yorker"Travellers is a rich mosaic of African migrant experiences." -- EastAfrican"Urgent, deeply empathetic, and resisting easy answers, Travelers follows the interconnected lives of African immigrants and refugees in Europe and examines the meanings of freedom, diaspora and home. Habila is a masterful storyteller, and this novel a riveting testament to the power of fiction." -- Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers"Habila’s latest is a resonant, relevant novel." -- Jane Ciabattari - BBC"I enjoyed Travelers immensely. Habila has written a pressure cooker of a story, an urgent novel that contends with the rootlessness of our world." -- Elliot Ackerman, author of Waiting for Eden

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Book Synopsis“Truly a masterpiece.” —Lawrence JosephTrade Review"[Beirut Hellfire Society] draws on Hage’s antic, many-voiced gifts to make a chronicle of war and unrelenting death into a provocative entertainment." -- John Williams - New York Times"[A] playfully scabrous novel that draws nearly as much from Nabokov as from Lebanon’s grisly civil war.… The writing is bravura, the humor, stygian and the thrill of expression, triumphant." -- Neda Ulaby - NPR"[A] hell of a story.… Pavlov is an irresistible lead: stony, well-read, tightly controlled, with a deep well of sadness. Call him Harry Bosch but in Lebanon." -- Nathan Deuel - Los Angeles Times"Hallucinatory.… [A] faceted meditation on existentialism." -- Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal"Beirut Hellfire Society crackles with the kinetic energy of a dancer.… The absurd volume of deaths is also tempered by [Rawi] Hage’s signature dark humor and stylistic playfulness." -- Toronto Star"A wild, viscerally exciting and often bleakly funny novel of ideas. Comparisons aren’t always useful, but this reviewer thought of a work… equally unflinching in its de-romanticizing of a subject most of us prefer to avoid: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian." -- Montreal Gazette"Potent.… Hage’s novel is a brisk, surreal, and often comic plunge into surviving the absurd nihilism of war." -- Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisPulsing with wit, seduction, and dark humor, House of Stone is a masterful debut that explores the creative—and often destructive—act of history-making.Trade Review"Tshuma’s brilliant layering of competing images and metaphors is one of the many marvels of this wise and demanding novel. . . . It’s a remarkable feat. . . . Tshuma shows us how much work it takes to efface the past, and, through House of Stone, she proves that those efforts are no match for a novel as ambitious and ingenious as this one." -- Dinaw Mengestu - New York Times Book Review"With luminous language, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma explores the treacherous terrain of colonization and decolonization, remembering and forgetting, and love and betrayal. The result is a gripping account of revolution and its aftermath, both for a country and for one man." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer"Novuyo Rosa Tshuma has written a towering and multilayered gem. House of Stone is one of the greatest-ever novels about Zimbabwe. What a timely, resonant gift." -- NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names"House of Stone is a novel of such maturity, such linguistic agility and scope that you’ll scarcely believe it’s a debut. Tshuma has set her formidable talents to no less a subject than the emergence of Zimbabwe from the darkness and tumult of colonialism. It’s fierce and energetic right to the end, and whip smart to boot." -- Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie"To call [House of Stone] clever or ambitious is to do it a disservice—it is both, but also more than that…Tshuma is incapable of writing a boring sentence…By the end, she has managed to not only sum up Zimbabwean history, but also all of African colonial history: from devastating colonialism to the bitter wars of independence to the euphoria of self-rule and the disillusionment of the present. It is an extraordinary achievement for a first novel." -- Helon Habila - Guardian"Tshuma's writing is smart, original, feisty, brutal and gorgeous. She hits the perfect note on every single page in this gripping novel about history, belonging and power. This is the work of an incredible, incredible talent." -- Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street"Novuyo Tshuma is pure fire." -- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You"A revealing chronicle of revolutionary and postcolonial Zimbabwe and a finely engraved portrait of obsession, told in fluid, absorbing language. " -- Library Journal"A multilayered, twisting, and surprising whirlwind of a novel that is as impressive as it is heartbreaking." -- Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Richard Powers is one of our country’s greatest living writers. He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever read. I’m in awe of his talent." -- Oprah Winfrey"Extraordinary.…Powers’s insightful, often poetic prose draws us at once more deeply toward the infinitude of the imagination and more vigorously toward the urgencies of the real and familiar stakes rattling our persons and our planet." -- Tracy K. Smith, New York Times Book Review (cover review)"A heartrending tale of loss.…Powers continues to raise bold questions about the state of our world and the cumulative effects of our mistakes." -- Heller McAlpin - NPR"Nothing short of transportive." -- Newsweek"[A]stounding.…a must-read novel.…It’s urgent and profound and takes readers on a unique journey that will leave them questioning what we’re doing to the only planet we have." -- Rob Merrill - Associated Press"As in The Overstory, Powers seamlessly yet indelibly melds science and humanity, hope and despair." -- Dale Singer - St. Louis Post-Dispatch"Bewilderment is a big book about what matters most.…a brilliant, engrossing, and ultimately heartbreaking book." -- David Laskin - Seattle Times"[P]oignant…Bewilderment is a cri de coeur.…this is a hauntingly intimate story set within the privacy of one family trapped in the penumbra of mourning." -- Ron Charles - Washington Post"You could think of it as ‘The Innerstory’: It is about how and whether we see the world we inhabit.... It is enchanting, and it is devastating." -- Ezra Klein - The Ezra Klein Show"Immersive and astonishing.…Powers captures the tragedy of a species that could, but perhaps won’t, become a lasting part of a cosmic menagerie. But in this absorbing and effortlessly readable tale he seems to have also found uplifting poetry in our despair." -- Caleb Scharf - Nautilus"A moving depiction of filial love, as father and son confront a world of ‘invisible suffering on unimaginable scales." -- The New Yorker"In Bewilderment, [Powers's] mastery strikes a new vein.…it raises goosebumps and breaks our hearts." -- John Domini - The Brooklyn Rail"Achingly current and wise." -- Bethanne Patrick - Washington Post"[Powers] wants to challenge our innate anthropocentrism, both in literature and how we live." -- Alexandra Alter - New York Times"Remarkable....Bewilderment channels both the cosmic sublime and that of the vast American outdoors, resting confidently in a lineage with Thoreau and Whitman, Dillard and Kerouac." -- Rob Doyle - The Guardian"One of America’s most ambitious and imaginative novelists.... In a year of unprecedented worldwide drought, fire, and flooding, [Bewilderment] couldn’t be timelier.... Whether concerning family or nature, this heart-rending tale warns us to take nothing for granted." -- Alexander C. Kafka - Boston Globe"The tenderness between father and son seem[s] so real and heartfelt that the novel becomes its own empathy machine. What’s more powerful, though, is how the emotions Bewilderment evokes expand far beyond the bond of father and son to embrace the living world." -- Ellen Atkins - Minneapolis Star Tribune"Powers [has] an emotional core to everything he writes, and this sets him apart from nearly everyone." -- David Yaffe - Air Mail"An unabashed tearjerker....The most moving and inspiring of all Powers’s books." -- Gish Jen - The New Republic"Intimate.…Powers is an essential member of the pantheon of writers who are using fiction to address climate change." -- Carolyn Kellogg - Los Angeles Times"Powers succeeds in engaging both head and heart. And through its central story of bereavement, this novel of parenting and the environment becomes a multifaceted exploration of mortality." -- The Economist

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Book SynopsisA political thriller set against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the Pulitzer-nominated, bestselling author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year “Blends elements of spy thriller and love story, magical realism, and an all-too-real history of one of the world’s most intractable problems: peace between Israel and its neighbors. —The Boston GlobeIn the Negev desert, a nameless prisoner languishes in a secret cell, his only companion the guard who has watched over him for a dozen years. Meanwhile, the prisoner’s arch nemesis—The General, Israel’s most controversial leader—lies dying in a hospital bed. From Israel and Gaza to Paris, Italy, and America, Englander provides a kaleidoscopic view of the prisoner’s unlikely journey to his cell. Dinner at the Center of the Earth is a tour de force—a powerful, wryly funny, intensely suspenseful portrait of a nation riven by insoluble conflict, and the man who improbably lands at the center of it all.

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Book SynopsisHenning Mankell's first novel, never before released in English, explores the reflections of a working class man who has struggled against the constraints of his station for his entire life. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.The year is 1911. The young rock blaster Oskar Johansson has been killed in an accident. Or so it says in the local newspaper. In spite of serious injuries, however, Oskar survives. Decades later, Oskar looks back and reflects on his working life as an invalid, his marriage, his dreams, and his hopes. Oskar's life is woven together out of fragments of voices, images, and episodes that, taken together, provide a sharp and precise picture of life in Sweden for the working class.

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Book SynopsisA new book from Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint, SJP for Hogarth: Written from behind bars, the unforgettable collection from one of Turkey’s leading politicians and most powerful storytellers.   In this essential collection, Selahattin Demirtaş’s arresting stories capture the voices of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. A cleaning lady is caught up in a violent demonstration on her way to work. A five-year-old girl attempts to escape war-torn Syria with her mother by boat. A suicide bombing shatters a neighborhood in Aleppo. And in the powerful story, 'Seher', a young factory worker is robbed of her dreams in an unimaginable act of violence.   Written with Demirtas’s signature wit, warmth, and humor, and alive with the rhythms of everyday speech, DAWN paints a remarkable portrait of life behind the headlines in Turkey and the Middle East – in all its hardship an

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Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of The Monk of Mokha and The Circle comes a taut, suspenseful story of two foreigners' role in a nation's fragile peace.An unnamed country is leaving the darkness of a decade at war, and to commemorate the armistice the government commissions a new road connecting two halves of the state. Two men, foreign contractors from the same company, are sent to finish the highway. While one is flighty and adventurous, wanting to experience the nightlife and people, the other wants only to do the work and go home. But both men must eventually face the absurdities of their positions, and the dire consequences of their presence. With echoes of J. M. Coetzee and Graham Greene, this timeless novel questions whether we can ever understand another nation's war, and what role we have in forging anyone's peace.

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Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of The Flight Attendant—Patience Avery is a dowser, a “water witch.” Her natural gifts enable her to locate lost items, missing people, and aquifers deep within the earth. This last skill is more in demand than ever, as her home state of Vermont is in the grip of the worst drought in years. Patience knows better than most that this crisis is only the start. 25th Anniversary Edition, with a new note from the authorYet Patience’s opinion means little to her brother-in-law, Scottie Winston. Scottie’s spent the long, dry summer lobbying for permits to expand Powder Peak, a local ski area that’s his law firm’s biggest client. The resort is seeking to draw water for snowmaking from the Chittenden River, despite opposition from environmentalists who fear that the already weakened waterway will be damaged beyond repair. As the pressure mounts—from his wife and daughter on one side and a slew of powerful politicians and wealthy developers on the other—Scottie finds himself pushed closer and closer to a life-changing moral crisis.One of bestselling author Chris Bohjalian’s earliest novels, Water Witches is a prescient environmentalist and political drama that’s even more relevant today than it was a quarter of a century ago.Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!

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Book SynopsisA CHICAGO TRIBUNE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • An urgent, fiercely intelligent debut novel about two couples, an ocean apart—one wounded by a war crime, the other just starting to reckon with being implicated in it.... An insightful book about the slow, zigzag work of healing that nonetheless moves at the speed of a thriller (Caleb Crain, author of Necessary Errors).For years, Amira—a recent convert to Islam living in Rome—has gone to work, said her prayers, and struggled to piece together her husband’s redacted letters from the Moroccan black site where he is imprisoned. She moves as inconspicuously as possible through her modest life, doing her best to avoid the whispered curiosity of her community.  Meanwhile, Mel—once an activist—is trying to get the suburban conservatives of her small North Carolina town to support her school board initiatives, and struggles to fill her empty nest. It'

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “beautifully and sparingly constructed” (The New York Times) novel about a lighthouse keeper with a mysterious past, and the stranger who washes up on his shores—An Island is the American debut of a major voice in world literature.“An Island by Karen Jennings is quite simply a revelation—a ferocious, swift chess game of a novel.”—Paul Yoon, author of Run Me to EarthONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: VultureSamuel has lived alone on an island off the coast of an unnamed African country for more than two decades. He tends to his garden, his lighthouse, and his chickens, content with a solitary life. Routinely, the nameless bodies of refugees wash ashore, but Samuel—who understands that the government only values certain lives, certain deaths—always buries

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Book SynopsisA masterwork by the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, in which two immigrants’ conflicting stories about their common homeland reveal the buried truths that drove them from itOn a late November afternoon, Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from his native Zanzibar. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession—a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise, silence his only protection. Meanwhile, Latif Mahmud, a distinguished young professor, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When the two encounter each other in an English seaside town, the narratives each carries of their mutual past begin to unravel—revealing an infinitely more fascinating story of love and betrayal, seduction and possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.

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Book Synopsis'BEST OF THE BOOKER' AWARD WINNER • This towering classic of international literature is at once a riveting family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people. “One of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation.” —The New York Review of Books Saleem Sinai, the hero of Midnight's Children, is one of the thousand and one children born in India at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the dawn of its independence from British rule—the moment, in the words of its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, when India had her tryst with destiny. The twists and turns of this destiny form the springboard from which Salman Rushdie launches into his celebrated fantasia of our modernity. At once a fairy tale, a furious political satire, and a meditation on the ways in which time and change both shape and are shaped by the life of a single ind

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Book SynopsisNew Directions proudly introduces two novels in English by the Norwegian master, who is “without question, Norway’s bravest, most intelligent novelist” (Per Petterson) Trade Review"The thing about Armand V is that no matter how seemingly irrelevant these tangents are and how miscellaneous is the book’s structure, nothing in it feels unimportant. This, for me, is why Armand V succeeds so magnificently." -- Veronica Scott Esposito - Literary Hub"Solstad, regarded by Norwegians as arguably their finest and surely their most critically praised and influential contemporary novelist, pairs his deep political engagement with an ever-renewed formal invention. With each new novel, he startles us, his readers, yet again with something unexpected. I find him, with his spirited intelligence, a delight and an inspiration to read, whether (haltingly!) in Norwegian or, over the past few years, happily, gratefully, in English translation." -- Lydia Davis"All of the whispers have been right: Solstad is a vital novelist." -- Charles Finch - New York Times Book Review"Solstad’s inventive approach allows him to reflect on the freedom and obligations of the novelist who is tasked with telling someone else’s life story. It also inscribes, in the novel’s very form, Solstad’s way of writing about people who are not quite the protagonists of their own lives...What if a life—even an apparently consequential one, like an ambassador’s—had no discernible narrative, no coherent main action? Actual lives look nothing much like conventional novels. That is the challenge Solstad accepts and rigorously joins." -- James Wood - The New Yorker"Death occupies the space between each of the footnotes that make up the corpus of Armand V, but what Solstad ultimately celebrates in it is the freedom of the novelist, and of the novel form, even as the soon-to-be-curtailed lives of his aging protagonists deny freedom’s very existence. It is a grand negation." -- The Times Literary Supplement"Since he published his first book of stories in 1965, Dag Solstad has been to Scandinavian literature what Philip Roth has been to American letters or Gu¨nter Grass to German writing: an unavoidable voice." -- The Paris Review"He’s a kind of surrealistic writer—serious literature." -- Haruki Murakami"His language sparkles with its new old-fashioned elegance, and radiates a unique luster, inimitable and full of e´lan." -- Karl Ove Knausgaard"Of diplomacy and its discontents: an existentialist-tinged character study by acclaimed Norwegian novelist Solstad." -- Kirkus"This unique, fascinating novel is composed of footnotes to a larger work that doesn’t exist...Solstad is, as ever, excellent at mingling the personal with the theoretical, embedded in the strange beauty of everyday routine." -- Publishers Weekly (starred)"The Solstadian long sentence feeds back into itself, meandering with the aimless inevitability of a river heading towards the sea." -- The Guardian"The novel unfolds against every expectation into something memorable and moving." -- Michael Autrey - Booklist Online"Already renowned in Scandinavian literature, Solstad once again brilliantly defies categories, this time in English." -- Lanie Tankard - World Literature Today

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Book SynopsisAn unforgettable yet humane novel that takes us into the heart of Colombia’s brutal society, by one of the country’s most renowned writersTrade Review"Rosero’s prose, translated with lyricism by McLean and Meadowcroft, conveys the characters’ horrifying human nature with aplomb." -- Publishers Weekly"Rosero affirms unashamedly that literature can and should change social reality." -- Antonio Ungar - BOMB"The Armies is a disturbing allegory of life during wartime, in which little appears to happen while at the same time entire lives and worlds collapse." -- The Times (London)"Evelio Rosero is one of the most important and innovative Colombian writers working today. His voice is essential, in terms of using fiction to make sense and shed light on Colombia's violent past and present. Tono the Infallible is a valuable contribution to Rosero's oeuvre: the novel takes us on one darkly picaresque adventure after another, with the disturbingly twisted titular character. Like Patrick Bateman and Amy Dunne, Tono easily joins the ranks of memorable literary villains. With this novel Rosero has proven himself as an author decidedly unafraid to ask difficult questions about the nature and origin of evil and cruelty. This is a brave, uncompromising, and unforgettable work." -- Julianne Pachico"The atrocity exhibition that Rosero has set up for his readers in Tono the Infallible, a book that teems with casual assassination and generational incest, deftly suggests that the slipperiest sin might be humanity’s ability to excuse itself from the worst of its tribe." -- Roberto Ontiveros - Texas Observer"Outrageous, vile, and wild...the book is simply compelling. Rosero’s prose—as translated by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean—is mesmerizing." -- Lincoln Michel - Countercraft"Inexplicable violence follows Toño, or perhaps he chases violence around, every bit of gore intensified by Rosero’s vivid prose." -- Federico Perelmuter - Southwest Review"Through his dreamlike prose, the author creates a bona fide foil in Eri, who illuminates Toño’s psychopathy. Rosero does, however, leave it to the reader to discern if Toño did, in fact, commit the heinous crimes, or if the tale of Toño is legend and just the vessel Rosero uses to express his feelings about Colombia’s government." -- Wayne Catan - World Literature Today

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Book SynopsisAlindarka’s Children is the masterful English debut of Alhierd Bacharevic, a new voice from BelarusTrade Review"A dark fantasy by one of Belarus’s most original contemporary writers. It captures the depths of frustration, grief, and resolve building up for decades under the deceptively placid surface of Belarusian life. Both a translation and a collage—an independent, multilingual literary work." -- Jaroslaw Anders - The New York Review of Books"You can take this book on many levels, from the philosophical and psychological analysis of what it does to a nation and a people to remove, control and suppress its mother tongue, to an exciting tale of two runaway children." -- The Scotsman"Bacharevic’s rich, provocative novel offers a kaleidoscopic picture of language as fairy-tale forest, as Gulag, as monument, as tomb, as everlasting life." -- Sophie Pinkham - The New York Times"Bacharevic’s novel blends the magic and darkness of a fairy tale with what is implicitly a manifesto on language and national identity. " -- Kirkus Reviews"Largely a meditation on what makes a language worth holding onto... Alindarka's Children shifts lyrically between two languages, Belarusian and Russian, translated respectively and brilliantly into Scots and English. Readers will be stirred by Bacharevic’s ardent, earnest devotion." -- Publishers Weekly

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