In Francesca Ekwuyasi’s "Butter Honey Pig Bread", a Nigerian woman’s homecoming stirs bad memories, old hurts, and a chance for new beginnings. Kehinde has not seen her mother, Kambirinachi, or twin sister, Taiye, in years. After... Read More

A refugee family struggles to adjust to a new life in E. Lily Yu’s novel "On Fragile Waves". Firuzeh doesn’t know why her parents have whisked her and her brother from Afghanistan to Australia. Nor does she understand why the... Read More

A woman’s drowning brings deadly and uncomfortable truths to the surface in Roxanne Bouchard’s "The Coral Bride". Angel, one of the only fisherwomen in the Gaspé Peninsula, goes missing just before her tenth wedding anniversary.... Read More

War and politics rip a family apart in Marco Balzano’s historical novel I’m Staying Here. When Mussolini tries to Italianize their German-speaking town in Northern Italy, many of Trina’s neighbors hope that Hitler will invade and... Read More

In Makenzy Orcel’s "The Immortals", a grieving woman vents her feelings on death and loss. A Haitian sex worker cajoles her client, a writer, into recording the life of her protégé, who was killed in the 2010 earthquake. Despite the... Read More

Historical figures reevaluate the legacy of an abolitionist in Zoë Wicomb’s novel "Still Life". Plagued by writer’s block, an author allows the contemporaries of Thomas Pringle, a Scottish-born poet and abolitionist, to take the... Read More

A farmer turned religious leader prepares for the rapture in Lin Enger’s novel "American Gospel". Amid the uncertainty and turmoil of President Nixon’s resignation, Enoch knows one thing for certain: Jesus will return in fourteen... Read More

The harsh realities of immigration are filtered through a man’s experiences in Gaëlle Josse’s novel, "The Last Days of Ellis Island". Ellis Island, the legendary point of entry for millions of American immigrants, is set to shut its... Read More