Published by Random House, 2009, 319 pages. Set in Ghana, this is the first in a series featuring Detective Inspector Darko Dawson. Gladys Mensah is found dead in the forest near Ketanu. Her body, seemingly untouched, is discovered by Efia, a trokosi or a “wife of the gods”. In reality, Efia is one of the …
Category: Fiction
Fly Already: Etgar Keret
Translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, Nathan Englander, Jessica Cohen, Miriam Shlesinger and Yardenne GreenspanPublished by Riverhead Books, 2019, 209 pages. Original version published in 2018. A child encourages a man to jump off the top of a building, believing that the man is a superhero and will fly. A man keeps the compacted wreck …
The New Wilderness: Diane Cook
Published by Oneworld Publications, 2020, 416 pages. This book is set in a dystopian future in the United States at a time when all the natural resources have been used up by humans. Cities are polluted, the air is almost unbreathable, and children are dying as a result. One of these sick children is Beatrice’s …
The Desert and the Drum: Mbarek Ould Beyrouk
Translated from French by Rachel McGillPublished by Dedalus, 2018, 170 pages. Original version published in 2015. “There was no moon, no stars. The light has been drained away, the sky left mute. I could distinguish neither colours nor shapes. Dunes and trees had been engulfed by the universe, sucked into its sidereal blackness. … I …
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The Bone Readers: Jacob Ross
Published by Little, Brown and Company / Peepal Tree Press / Sphere, 2016, 264 pages. This is a thoroughly enjoyable whodunit from a Grenadian writer. Michael Digson (“Digger”) is out of work, living on the island of Camaho.[1] He is the illegitimate son (“outside child”) of a maid and her employer, the Commissioner of Police. …
Real Life: Brandon Taylor
Published by Daunt Books, 2020, 336 pages. “It was a cool evening in late summer, when Wallace, his father dead for several weeks, decided that he would meet his friends at the pier after all.” Wallace is a young, gay, Black man who is four years into a degree in biochemistry at a predominantly white …
The Ayah and Other Stories: Chanis Fernando-Boisard
Published by Amaryllis, 2017, 132 pages. The short stories in this collection capture the small but seismic shifts in a person’s life: the distraction of a tutor whose wife has left him; the regret of a woman who has walked out of her marriage of 30 years; and a woman realizing that her dream house …
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The Circle of Karma: Kunzang Choden
Published by Zubaan, 2005, 316 pages. This is the story of Pema Tsomo, who grows up in a village in Bhutan. When she is born, the astrologer tells her mother that the child will be restless, always wanting to travel. But, her mother thinks, where can a girl go? Women didn’t leave their homes; they …
WE (a story about us): Susan T. Landry
Illustrated by Benedetta C. VialliPublished by Ebb Tide Press, 2020, 26 pages. It feels like so many people all over the world have become polarized, divided into opposing factions who do not talk to or listen to each other. The recent lockdown has not helped; it has only exacerbated isolation and forced us into our …
The Assassin’s Song: M.G. Vassanji
Published by Vintage Books, 2007, 339 pages. “I often wished my distinction would simply go away, that I would wake up one morning and it wouldn’t be there. I did not want to be God, or His trustee, or His avatar—the distinctions often blurred in the realm of the mystical that was my inheritance. Growing …
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