A fishing village plagued by ghosts and omens unites to protect a refugee girl in Justin Haynes’s potent novel "Ibis". The site of a vicious sugar plantation centuries ago, New Felicity, Trinidad, is a nexus for Venezuelan refugees.... Read More

A tantalizing smorgasbord of culinary memories, Karolina Ramqvist’s memoir discusses family and community love in terms of shared dishes. Ramqvist’s earliest recollections speak to her enduring love of food: “when I ate something... Read More

Stephanie Carpenter’s compelling novel "Moral Treatment" explores curative and troubling therapies in a Michigan psychiatric hospital alongside the institutionalization of a young patient. In 1889, seventeen-year-old Amy is certified... Read More

In Michelle de Kretser’s novel Theory & Practice, a Sri Lankan graduate student completes her thesis while embroiled in a love affair. In 1986, a woman takes rooms in Melbourne to research her thesis on Virginia Woolf. She wrestles... Read More

Shifting between Nigeria and the US, Olufunke Grace Bankole’s novel "The Edge of Water" is about the separation and reunion of mothers and daughters. Esther details her experience of motherhood through letters to her daughter Amina,... Read More

A smitten Omani man’s beekeeping consumes Zahran Alqasmi’s novel "Honey Hunger". Returning to his home village after a tough winter that forced the temporary relocation of his bee colony to the desert region of Juba, Azzan, a... Read More

In Eva Menasse’s historical novel "Darkenbloom", the wartime secrets of a small Austrian town are compromised by the urgent demands of the present. The book begins in 1989 in the Austrian village of Darkenbloom. Though it’s no longer... Read More

A favored son longs to be accepted by his resentful brothers in "Seventeen Spoons", the moving second novel of Esther Goldenberg’s epic biblical trilogy. Joseph, longed for for ages, receives special treatment from his parents, earning... Read More