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Pavel Gospodinov / Getty The Deft Inventions of The Parking Lot Attendant
Nafkote Tamirat’s debut novel is a highly unusual allegory of alienation and hybrid identity.
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Oliver Lang / AFP / Getty The Eerie Horrors of The Perfect Nanny
Leïla Slimani’s novel scrutinizes the paradoxes of parenting in a world where the potential for disaster abounds.
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Carlos Barria / Reuters The Floating World Unearths Trauma Amid Natural Disaster
C. Morgan Babst’s debut novel, which follows a family in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, tests the limits of selflessness and community.
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Amy Weiss-Meyer / The Atlantic A Freelance Diplomat Takes Scandinavia
Ex-Ambassador Rufus Gifford is still big in Denmark. But can he bring his political appeal back home?
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Nikola Solic / Reuters Swallowing Mercury Explores the Macabre Beauty of Childhood
Wioletta Greg’s novel, longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, follows the interior life of a young girl during the waning days of the Polish People’s Republic.
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Nina Subin What We Lose: A Striking Novel About Filial Grief
Zinzi Clemmons’s debut tangles with familiar questions, using a propulsive experimentalism in lieu of linear narrative.
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Amr Nabil / AP The Story of a Revolution, Told in Real Time
Omar Robert Hamilton’s debut novel, The City Always Wins, follows members of an activist media collective chronicling the aftermath of the Egyptian uprising.
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Aly Song The Leavers Is a Wrenching Tale of Parenthood
Lisa Ko’s novel, about the disappearance of an undocumented mother, places an imperfect victim within a cruel system.
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Alvaro Dominguez Apps for Refugees
How technology helps in a humanitarian crisis
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Diego Main / Getty The Powerful Pessimism of What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky
Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut story collection takes a dystopic look at human life, but pulls back from the brink of total bleakness.
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Ajay Verma / Reuters The Lucky Ones Is No Ordinary Coming-of-Age Novel
Julianne Pachico’s remarkably inventive debut navigates what it means to grow up wealthy amid the reality of conflict in Colombia.
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Kiriko Sano / Random House / Teresa Flowers ... Hope in the Rubble of the American Dream
Two new novels by Imbolo Mbue and Jade Chang take on the 2008 financial crisis from the perspective of immigrant families.
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Finn Frandsen / POLFOTO / AP Big in Denmark: The U.S. Ambassador
“Rufus Gifford is a rock star.”
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Scholastic / Amazon Dear America: Reading Through History
In the aftermath of 9/11, the young-adult historical fiction series showed me how people move forward after earth-shattering moments.
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Kate Berry / Michael Lionstar / Knopf / ... The Agony and the Ecstasy of Girlhood
New fiction collections from Abigail Ulman and Rebecca Schiff feature young female narrators finding their way through a mass culture where individuality is everything.
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Max Means / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / ... Hystopia: An Ambitious, Dystopian Retelling of the Vietnam War
David Means’s debut novel examines the psychological implications of a world where trauma can be erased.
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Lisa Whiteman / Ecco / Zak Bickel / ... The Nest: A Tale of Family, Fortune, and Dysfunction
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's much-hyped debut pokes fun at a privileged New York clan’s money troubles.
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Tramp Press / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Zak ... Spill Simmer Falter Wither Is an Unsettling Literary Surprise
Sara Baume’s debut novel imbues the over-used man-and-his-dog relationship with a deeply attuned portrait of the human mind.
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Michael Lionstar Man Booker Shortlist 2015: A Spool of Blue Thread
Anne Tyler’s novel, her 20th, is a meditation on the meaning of home.
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Europa The Story of a New Language: Elena Ferrante’s American Translator
The success of the author's Neapolitan novels—and the mystery surrounding their author—have shone an unexpected spotlight on Ann Goldstein, the New Yorker editor who's translated them into English.
