Literary Fiction

Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah, translated by Barbara Romaine, follows four young Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper who are assigned to interview one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba. The elderly man refuses to cooperate, challenging the journalists' assumptions about memory, history...

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho follows Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams of finding a treasure near the Egyptian pyramids. He leaves his familiar life behind and travels across North Africa, meeting people who help him understand his dreams, purpose and the importance...

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan is a sweeping multigenerational novel following a Palestinian family across five decades. Beginning in Nablus in 1967, the story follows Alia and her family as war and political upheaval force them from Palestine to Kuwait and, later, across Beirut,...

Beer in the Snooker Club by Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali is a classic novel of exile and cultural displacement. Set between London and Cairo during the era of Nasser, it follows Ram and Font as they struggle with political upheaval, privilege, friendship and their...

A warm, witty and bittersweet novel told through the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp, a 73-year-old woman who uses correspondence to make sense of her life. When letters from her past force her to confront painful memories and long-held regrets, Sybil must find the...

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad follows Sonia Nasir, a British-Palestinian actress who returns to Haifa after years away. She becomes involved in a production of Hamlet in the West Bank, where theatre, family, identity and political reality become increasingly intertwined. The novel explores belonging,...

Artie Dam appears to have an ordinary, settled life: he teaches history, enjoys sailing and shares his home with his wife of three decades. Yet beneath the surface, he is troubled by loneliness and questions about how little people truly understand one another. When...

Discover the must-read Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, the perfect uplifting summer read, now a major Apple TV series starring Brie Larson.'The most charming, life-enhancing novel I've read in ages' Sunday Times‘A page-turning and highly satisfying tale’ – Maggie Shipstead, author of Great CircleYour ability to change everything - including yourself - starts hereChemist...

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is a powerful literary novel following Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian American struggling with addiction, grief and questions about his family's past. Cyrus's mother died when her passenger plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was a...

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter is an inventive and emotionally powerful novel about grief, family and healing. After the sudden death of their mother, two young boys and their father struggle to cope with their loss. Into their lives comes...

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth is a tender coming-of-age novel set in rural Ireland in the early 1990s. Lucy has always felt out of place in the small village of Crossmore. During one long, hot summer, her friendship with Susannah develops into an intense...

Set during the Second World War, All the Light We Cannot See follows Marie-Laure, a blind French girl who flees occupied Paris with her father, and Werner, a German orphan whose talent for radios draws him into the Nazi war machine. Their lives gradually...

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But...

Yale student Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hoping to connect with her family, her Chinese heritage and herself. But her summer of discovery quickly becomes complicated by difficult classes, an uncomfortable living situation and an unexpected romance. When her grandfather dies, Lily is forced...

Floodlines by Saleem Haddad is a sweeping multigenerational novel about three estranged Iraqi-British sisters—Mediha, Zainab and Ishtar—who are brought back together in 2014 after discovering their late father's lost paintings. As the family investigates the paintings and their father's legacy, buried secrets and old...

A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon is an intergenerational novel moving between Baghdad and London. The story begins in 2003, when Anglo-Iraqi psychiatrist Mona Haddad receives an unexpected visitor who may finally reveal what happened to her family before they left Iraq. The...

Too Soon by Betty Shamieh is a literary family saga following three generations of Palestinian American women. Arabella, a New York theatre director, is drawn into a complicated relationship and a theatre project in the West Bank. Her mother Naya and grandmother Zoya have...

In the 1930s, private eye Hicks McTaggart finds himself moving through a world of spies, swing music, political tension and increasingly strange clues. What begins like a detective case expands into the unpredictable territory associated with Thomas Pynchon. Shadow Ticket mixes noir, history and...

Chuck and Joey are drawn together despite differences in age, income and ambition. Their relationship unfolds among creative dreams, awkward conversations and the pressures of trying to build a life while understanding another person. Jem Calder’s contemporary literary novel looks closely at intimacy, aspiration...

M. John Harrison imagines a damaged, unsettling world in The End of Everything. Phillip Tennent earns his living collecting objects washed up along the Channel, in a landscape where the consequences of an earlier crisis remain difficult to explain. Familiar institutions have weakened, and...