New York Times Staff Favorite of 2018
Minnesota Public Radio Best Books of 2018 – Nonfiction
CBC Best International Nonfiction of 2018
The Globe 100 Favourite Books of 2018
Born in exile, in Zambia, to a guerrilla father and a working mother, Sisonke Msimang is constantly on the move. Her parents, talented and highly educated, travel from Zambia to Kenya and Canada and beyond with their young family. Always the outsider, and against a backdrop of racism and xenophobia, Sisonke develops her keenly perceptive view of the world. In this sparkling account of a young girl’s path to womanhood, Sisonke interweaves her personal story with her political awakening in America and Africa, her euphoria at returning to the new South Africa, and her disillusionment with the new elites. Confidential and reflective, Always Another Country is a search for belonging and identity: a warm and intimate story that will move many readers.

Always Another Country

Biographies & Memoirs

Msimang, Sisonke

Arts & Literature

World Editions

"You Have Me to Love is an intense and dramatic novel filled with meticulous use of detail and a forensic psychological accuracy. Its power comes from the fierce energy of the narrative structure, the way of handling silence and pain, and the ability to confront the darkest areas of experience with clear-eyed sympathy and care. Jaap Robben handles delicate, dangerous material with subtlety and sympathy, but also with a visionary sense of truth that is masterly and unforgettable." ―Colm Tóibín
Mikael lives with his parents on an island somewhere between Scotland and Norway. One day Mikael’s father saves him from drowning in the ocean, but is himself thrown against the rocks by a wave and disappears under water. In shock and unable to speak, Mikael blocks out the memory of what took place, silently joining his mother in the search for his missing father. As Mikael’s mother realizes her husband has drowned, the relationship between her and Mikael transforms: she slowly starts to unravel, forcing the son to replace his father in every possible way.

You Have Me to Love

Literature & Fiction

Robben, Jaap

Literary

"Cool, sparse, and delicious, Esther Gerritsen’s Craving hits all the right notes. This is an author who is unafraid of both complex characters and complex emotion (Thank God!)." ―Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
 "Funny, angry, feminist...Droll and horrific and incredibly moving"―The New York Times Book Review
Elisabeth is dying. Coco jumps at this chance to prove her love, and promptly moves in with her deteriorating mother. A venture that quickly sends both parties spiraling out of control. Alongside a supporting cast of ex-bosses, ex-husbands, and (soon to be ex) boyfriends, the two women attempt to work through the annals of their dark yet often wildly humorous relationship. Psychologically astute and eye-poppingly candid, this is a tale about both excess and denial in which some things perhaps would have been better left unspoken. Sometimes the only person who understands you in this world is your hairdresser…
Gerritsen’s sparse and lucid prose chimes with the absurdist logic and melancholy wit of characters as true as they are ridiculous.

Craving

Gerritsen, Esther

Even readers unfamiliar with the Last Poets’ historic significance as building blocks of the hip-hop and rap movement, will instantly find this novel a compelling read. 
The Last Poets were self-proclaimed prophets of "hope and change." The band was formed in 1968 against an incendiary backdrop of the black power movement and murders of Martin Luther King, Kennedy and Malcolm X. Today their socio-political lyrics have a renewed sense of urgency, rallying loud and clear against the fear-based politics of the Trump era. 
Christine Otten spent three months travelling across the United States interviewing members of the Last Poets, their families, friends, and musicians. She describes their impoverished childhoods, their love lives, successes and failures in this beautifully written, sensuously swinging, biopic-style novel.

The Last Poets

Otten, Christine

United States

“We and Me is a novel that will haunt me for a long time. Excellent and unforgettable.” ―Herman Koch, author of The Dinner
In this spellbinding novel, which has been compared to the work of Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, and Jeffrey Eugenides, Saskia de Coster provides a uniquely European take on the tradition of "The Great American Novel." With the family unit and some of life’s most pressing questions at its center, the award-winning We and Me paints a captivatingly haunting picture of bourgeois family life. 
Written from several different perspectives, We and Me covers the time period between 1980 and 2013 and focuses on the aristocratic Vandersanden family. Set in their opulent private estate located atop a mountain, neuroses, claustrophobia, scandal and rebellion run rife. At the heart of the family and the novel is Sarah, whose coming of age is both daringly and sensitively explored in de Coster’s skillful prose. With her characteristically incisive approach, de Coster excavates the nuanced underbelly of human emotions with humor, understanding, and a lightness of touch. We and Me is a remarkable and compelling tale by one of the greatest Belgian writers of our time.

We and Me

Humor & Entertainment

de Coster, Saskia

Humor

With a sharp and observational eye, Annelies Verbeke takes a funny, imaginative, and perceptive look at the realities and absurdities of human interactions, relationships, and everyday life. 
Verbeke matches poetic prose with a cast of intriguing characters and unexpected plot twists. Our protagonist is Alphonse, a Senegalese immigrant who uproots his life in Brussels to become a handyman in a rural district in Flanders. Likable and charismatic, people cannot help but reveal their secrets, desires, and unexpected dreams to him. In her typically astute style, Verbeke weaves a vivid and thought-provoking tale of contemporary life, subtly touching upon timely themes such as refugees and racism.
Thirty Days is a deeply moving story about love, outsiders, and the human need to connect, compellingly translated from the Dutch by Liz Waters.

Thirty Days

Verbeke, Annelies

Humor, pain and copious amounts of love run throughout this critically acclaimed novel by Tom Lanoye that sold almost 135,000 copies in Holland and Belgium alone. Both brave and honest, Speechless is a poignant homage to Lanoye’s late mother, Josée.
Flamboyant, proud and dominant, Josée is unrecognizable after suffering a stroke, which strips her of the ability to speak and express herself with the expansiveness for which she was known. With style and grace, Lanoye weaves together autobiography, testimony and fiction to recount the last years of his mother’s life and the years before her stroke. Harnessing his power as a playwright and dexterity as a poet, Lanoye employs rich prose to paint a colorful picture of growing up and coming to terms with his homosexuality. 
Speechless is compellingly translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent, whose skillful translation complements Lanoye’s rich style.

Speechless

Lanoye, Tom

The most hated woman in Belgium sits in her prison cell preparing for imminent release. Between brief interludes of counsel from Sister Virginie and Anouk, the prison psychiatrist, Odette is left alone to labor through the memories of her former life. Obsessive and reflective, yet crucially lacking in remorse, Odette's testimony is a tricky script to untangle. Based on the real-life events of Michelle Martin, ex-wife of the notorious child abductor, murderer and serial rapist, Marc Dutroux, this is a fictionalized account of the inner workings of Martin's mind before, during, and after the crimes that shook a nation in the 1990s.The excuses and abuses of this killer's accomplice make for a brave exploration of psychological trauma, and the slide towards its most extreme of consequences. In The Woman Who Fed the Dogs, Hemmerechts has produced a daring novel that positions the reader uncomfortably close to the human behind these unforgivable acts.

The Woman Who Fed The Dogs

Hemmerechts, Kristien

Inventive, dreamy Gieles lives with his father and a flock of geese on a plane-spotters’ campsite next to an airstrip. The surrounding landscape reclaimed from the sea, is as isolated as Gieles himself. The fourteen-year-old boy is longing for the mysterious dreadlocked girl he’s met online, and for the affection of his absent mother, off on hapless missions to save the world. The boy conceives a desperate, dangerous plan to attract his mother’s attention. He’ll be a hero. Just like Captain Sully, who bravely landed on the Hudson after geese flew into his engines.
Goemans’s charmingly upbeat novel describes the fantasy-driven world of a teenage boy. At the same time, it tells the incredible story about how the Dutch turned water into land.

Gliding Flight

Goemans, Anne-Gine

"A leading French feminist and writer, Groult drew wide attention with this sexually daring novel"—The NY Times 
Salt on my Skin is widely regarded as Benoîte Groult’s most pioneering, best-loved book. 
This highly-charged novel follows the passionate relationship between mismatched lovers: a Parisian intellectual and a Breton fisherman, brought together by lust. Through love-letters and exotic encounters around the world, their life-long affair evolves—liberating them from the restrictions and disappointments dealt by real life. 
Set in France in the 1960s, it explores the touching dynamics of the couple’s relationship, and whether their raw desire for each other can overcome the wide social divide that separates them. The narrative examines the difficulties of writing frankly about sex and explores the protagonist's conflict between fulfilling her intellectual and sexual needs.

Salt on my Skin

Groult, Benoîte.

Romance

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