Aamina Ahmad pays exacting attention to her characters’ psychological nuances in her debut novel, The Return of Faraz Ali. The neo-noir novel tells the tale of a Faraz Ali who was taken from his birthplace in Lahore (Pakistan’s second largest city) as a child only to be sent back years later by his powerful politician father, now as a police officer tasked with covering up …
Emily St John Mandel’s sixth novel Sea of Tranquility playfully and indulgently bends time travel, metaphysics and grief. The science fiction novel juggles an ambitious amount: a young man in 1912 exiled to the Canadian forest, an author trapped in a pandemic-ravaged Earth, moon colonies, paranormal investigations, the 25th century and even references to Mandel’s previous works. Both meta and mind-bending, Sea of Tranquility examines the end of …
Taiwanese American writer Elaine Hsieh Chou’s debut novel, Disorientation, is a sharp, nuanced portrait of navigating relationships and institutions as an Asian American woman. Told through a quick-witted, satirical whodunnit, the novel follows the journey of PhD student Ingrid Yang when she uncovers a secret related to her thesis that quickly unravels her life. With gripping surrealism and pertinent characterizations, Chou captures the specific experiences plaguing …
