Meg was born at the start of the Great Depression. Surrounded by poverty and unemployment she grew up in the gritty reality of a butcher’s shop in a pit village in the North East of England. The youngest child,...

Bedouin is a unique and beautiful portrait of the Arab nomad’s life, rich in colour and culture. It uncovers the mystery that surrounds an ancient tribe and their struggle to survive in hostile conditions, barren lands and the threat...

This rich story collection will be a reminder to Nadine Gordimer’s countless admirers, and a taster for the uninitiated, of her enduring imaginative power. A woman gauges the state of her marriage by the tone of her husband’s cello:...

She opens her eyes and focuses on the room around her. Everything is in place, yet something isn’t right. She walks towards her daughter’s room, calling her name, as she does every morning. But this morning is different. This...

Born a girl to parents who expected a boy, Jihad grows up treated like the eldest son, wearing boy’s clothing and sharing the financial burden of head of the household with her father. Now middle-aged, each night Jihad tells...

Annawadi is a slum at the edge of Mumbai Airport, in the shadow of shining new luxury hotels. Its residents are garbage recyclers, construction workers and economic migrants, all of them living in the hope that a small part...

Australian Jayne Keeney works as a PI in Bangkok. Shaken by a serious incident, she heads north to visit her close friend Didier in Chiang Mai, though there’s no relief for her there. Murder is in the air and...

Thubron cris-crosses the country in the 1980s, describing an eclectic mix of people, lifestyles, places, scenery, history, myth and politics…

Dai Wei lies in his bedroom, a prisoner in his body, after he was shot in the head at the Tiananmen Square protest ten years earlier and left in a coma. As his mother tends to him, and his...

In Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honour of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a...