If there’s anything almost as exciting as reading a great new book, it’s anticipating one. There’s a lot of fiction to look forward to over the next few months, beginning with new work from two recent Nobel laureates.
Han Kang’s We Do Not Part (trans. by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris; Hogarth, Jan. 21) is narrated by Kyungha, who’s recently moved into an apartment in Seoul and has barely been sleeping. When a friend asks her to travel to Jeju Island to take care of a pet bird, she takes off in the middle of a snowstorm. This “mysterious novel about history and friendship offers no easy answers,” according to our starred review.
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Theft (Riverhead, March 18) takes place in colonial Tanzania in the early 1960s, a time of great change. A young man, Karim, lives with his mother, Raya, and her husband, Haji, an uneasy household even before the arrival of Haji’s relative, Badar, whom they treat as a servant—and then accuse of theft. Our starred review calls it “a tightly constructed family drama with surprising complications.”
Nobody’s Empire (HarperVia, Jan. 21) is the first novel from Stuart Murdoch, leader of the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian. It tells the story of Stephen, 23, who has myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (as did Murdoch in his early 20s). He listens to music in Glasgow, hangs out with his friends, and then takes a trip to California. “Nothing much happens in this novel,” says our starred review. “But that’s what makes it so accomplished.…[This is a] compassionate, sweet, beautifully written novel.”
Julie Iromuanya’s A Season of Light (Algonquin, Feb. 4) examines the scars passed down through the generations of a Nigerian family in Florida. When 276 Nigerian schoolgirls are kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in 2014, attorney Fidelia Ewerike, haunted by his sister’s disappearance during the Biafran War in the late 1960s, decides to lock his 16-year-old daughter, Amara, in her bedroom to protect her. Our starred review says, “The interweaving nightmares and yearnings of these characters are evoked with empathy, tenderness, and intensely lyrical prose.”
Allison Epstein is the latest author to write from the perspective of a minor character in a classic novel; her Fagin the Thief (Doubleday, Feb. 25) presents Dickens’ criminal ringleader and exploiter of orphans from Oliver Twist as a victim of antisemitism in Victorian London who, at 16, is left an orphan himself. “Epstein captures the bravado and vulnerabilities of [Fagin’s] motley crew of orphans, and the gritty ambience of the alleys, cellars, and seedy pubs they inhabit.…Vivid characters populate a riveting narrative,” according to our starred review.
In Emily St. James’ Woodworking (Crooked Media Reads/Zando, March 4), 35-year-old Erica Skyberg is still living and teaching high school English as Mr. Skyberg, telling no one her secret until she meets 17-year-old Abigail Hawkes, a new student who’s outspokenly trans—but also wants to disappear into the woodwork, to be seen as just one of the kids. “St. James’ plot moves like a Shakespeare comedy,” according to our starred review. “Some contrivances, yes, but all in the service of portraying the prismatic variations of the characters here.”
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
