Staff Picks
What's New in Multicultural Fiction
- Mona Verma
- Monday, February 11, 2019
Collection
These are some of the intriguing and bestselling new Multicultural fiction titles. Divakaruni's Forest of Enchantments is an empowering tale, told from the point of view of Sita, the protagonist's wife in the famous Indian epic Ramayana. The original epic focuses on King Rama, his bravery, his virtuosity and his ideals as a dutiful son. Divakaruni's novel gives a powerful voice to Sita and lets us know what she is thinking and how she perceives her life and the lives of those which intersect with hers.
Do check out this book list and embark on a reading adventure with fascinating novels set in the background of countries like China, Japan, Iran, Syria, Uruguay, Colombia, Nigeria and so on.
Insurrecto
A Novel
Published in 2018
"Histories and personalities collide in this literary tour-de-force about the Philippines' present and America's past by the PEN Open Book Award-winning author of Gun Dealer's Daughter. Two women, a Filipino translator and an American filmmaker, go on a road trip in Duterte's Philippines, collaborating and clashing in the writing of a film script about a massacre during the Philippine-American War. Chiara is working on a film about an incident in Balangiga, Samar, in 1901, when Filipino revolutionaries attacked an American garrison, and in retaliation American soldiers created "a howling wilderness" of the surrounding countryside. Magsalin reads Chiara's film script and writes her own version. Insurrecto contains within its dramatic action two rival scripts from the filmmaker and the translator--one about a white photographer, the other about a Filipino schoolteacher. Within the spiraling voices and narrative layers of Insurrecto are stories of women--artists, lovers, revolutionaries, daughters--finding their way to their own truths and histories. Using interlocking voices and a kaleidoscopic structure, the novel is startlingly innovative, meditative, and playful. Insurrecto masterfully questions and twists narrative in the manner of Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, and Nabokov's Pale Fire. Apostol pushes up against the limits of fiction in order to recover the atrocity in Balangiga, and in so doing, she shows us the dark heart of an untold and forgotten war that would shape the next century of Philippine and American history"-- Provided by publisher.
To Keep the Sun Alive
A Novel
Published in 2019
The year is 1979. The Iranian Revolution is just around the corner. In the northeastern city of Naishapur, a family, including their friends and servants, ranging from young to old, reveal the personal behind the political, reminding us of the human lives that animate historical events.
In the Distance with You
Published in 2018
"Inspired by the life of ground-breaking Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, this Chilean literary thriller tells the story of three characters whose lives are intertwined with that of an enigmatic author"-- Provided by publisher.
In Our Mad and Furious City
Published in 2018
Inspired by the real-life murder of a British army soldier by religious fanatics, Guy Gunaratne's In Our Mad and Furious City is a snapshot of the diverse, frenzied edges of modern-day London. While Selvon, Ardan, and Yusuf organize their lives around soccer, girls, and grime, Caroline and Nelson struggle to overcome pasts that haunt them. Each voice is uniquely insightful, impassioned, and unforgettable, and when stitched together, they trace a brutal and vibrant tapestry of today's London. In a forty-eight-hour surge of extremism and violence, these characters' lives are inexorably drawn together in the lead-up to an explosive, tragic climax.
99 Nights in Logar
Published in 2019
"A coming-of-age story about one boy's journey across contemporary Afghanistan to find and bring home the family dog, blending the grit and immediacy of voice-driven fiction like We Need New Names with the mythmaking of One Thousand and One Nights. Twelve-year-old Marwand's memories from his previous visit to Afghanistan six years ago center on his contentious relationship with Budabash, the terrifying but beloved dog who guards his extended family's compound in Logar. Eager to find an ally in this place that's meant to be "home," Marwand approaches Budabash the way he would any dog on his American suburban block--and the results are disastrous: Marwand loses a finger and Budabash escapes. The resulting search for the family dog is an expertly told adventure, a ninety-nine-night quest that sends Marwand and his cousins across the landscape of Logar. Moving between celebrations and tragedies, deeply humorous and surprisingly tender, 99 Nights in Logar is a vibrant exploration of the power of stories--the ones we tell each other, and the ones we find ourselves in"-- Provided by publisher.
Everything Here is Beautiful
Published in 2018
"A tender but unflinching portrayal of the bond between two sisters."--Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You. A dazzling novel of two sisters and their emotional journey through love, loyalty, and heartbreak Two sisters--Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. But Lucia impetuously plows ahead, marrying a bighearted, older man only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She moves her new family from the States to Ecuador and back again, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill. Lucia lives life on a grand scale, until, inevitably, she crashes to earth. Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again--but only Lucia can decide whether she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans--but what does it take to break them? Told in alternating points of view, Everything Here Is Beautiful is, at its heart, the story of a young woman's quest to find fulfillment and a life unconstrained by her illness. But it's also an unforgettable, gut-wrenching story of the sacrifices we make to truly love someone--and when loyalty to one's self must prevail over all"-- Provided by publisher.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree
A Novel
Published in 2018
A novel set against the violence of 1990s Columbia follows a sheltered girl and a teen maid, who forge an unlikely friendship as the families of both struggle to maintain stability amidst Bogot©Ł's rapidly escalating violence.
The Naked Woman
Published in 2018
A woman's feminist awakening drives a hypocritical village to madness in rural Uruguay
On the Come Up
Published in 2019
When sixteen-year-old Bri, an aspiring rapper, pours her anger and frustration into her first song, she finds herself at the center of a controversy.
The Shape of the Ruins
Published in 2018
A man who was arrested for attempting to steal a suit belonging to a murdered politician from a Columbian museum sets of a series of public fixations on conspiracy theories, assassinations, and the country's historical secrets.
The Far Field
A Novel
Published in 2019
"Gorgeously tactile and sweeping in historical and socio-political scope, Pushcart Prize-winner Madhuri Vijay's The Far Field follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she reckons with her past, her desires, and the tumultuous present. In the wake of her mother's death, Kalyani, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him. But upon her arrival, Kalyani is brought face to face with Kashmir's politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Kalyani finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love. With rare acumen and evocative prose, in The Far Field Madhuri Vijay masterfully examines Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the lens of an outsider, offering a profound meditation on grief, guilt, and the limits of compassion"-- Provided by publisher.
The Day the Sun Died
A Novel
Published in 2018
"Yan Lianke has secured his place as contemporary China's most essential and daring novelist, "with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth" (New York Times Book Review). His newest novel, The Day the Sun Died--winner of the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, one of the most prestigious honors for Chinese-language novels--is a haunting story of a town caught in a waking nightmare. In a little village nestled in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian and his parents run a funeral parlor. One evening, he notices a strange occurrence. Instead of preparing for bed, more and more neighbors appear in the streets and fields, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn't already set. Li Niannian watches, mystified. As hundreds of residents are found dreamwalking, they act out the desires they've suppressed during waking hours. Before long, the community devolves into chaos, and it's up to Li Niannian and his parents to save the town before sunrise. Set over the course of one increasingly bizarre night, The Day the Sun Died is a propulsive, darkly sinister tale set against the national optimism of the Chinese dream" -- Provided by publisher.