Tag Archives: literary fiction

Title: The Great Night
Author: Chris Adrian
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 9781250007384
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
It isn’t easy to take a Shakespearean play and retell, even if it is being done loosely. Chris Adrian manages that and more with his book, “The Great Night”. I read the book in almost one sitting. It wasn’t that I was enthralled. It was just that the story was way too beautifully told for me to ignore it. I could also not read anything else while reading this…

Title: The Dream of the Celt
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Faber and Faber UK
ISBN: 978-0571275717
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 416
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
Mario Vargas Llosa is pure genius when it comes to the writing business. His sentences, his words, the plot of his books are beyond stupendous. The reason I praise him the way I do is apparent in his writing and he proves it yet again with his new book, “The Dream of the Celt”.
The Dream of the Celt is the fictionalized biography of…

Title: The Newlyweds
Author: Nell Freudenberger
Publisher: Viking
ISBN: 978-0670921843
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
When people from two different cultures marry each other, there is a lot at risk. The knowing that adaptation would have to be the order of the day at some point is very difficult to come to terms with. Not only that, but also the everyday living becomes a herculean task, which then becomes something to deal with. To make a life together is something that one needs to think of…

Title: Tell The Wolves I’m Home
Author: Carol Rifka Brunt
Publisher: Pan
ISBN: 978-1447202134
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 400
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
“Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt cannot be classified as a Young Adult novel. It is not that for sure. It is haunting and adult in more ways than one. It is a beautiful human story that I was expecting on reading the synopsis and it delivers at every level.
The premise is simple: Fourteen-year old June Elbus loses her beloved uncle Finn Weiss…

Title: The Orphan Master’s Son
Author: Adam Johnson
Publisher: Doubleday, Random House UK
ISBN: 978-0857520555
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 464
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
A book about North Korea is not an easy one to write. A territory which is closed to everyone and everything is quite enigmatic and yet inaccessible. Adam Johnson’s, “The Orphan Master’s Son” is a book set in modern day North Korea and epitomizes Orwellian Horror at its best. The book but obviously features the regime under, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong il. Now to tell you…

Title: Lovers
Author: Daniel Arsand
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 978-1609-450717
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 144
Rating: 5/5
“Lovers” by Daniel Arsand is set in 18th Century France. It is a love story. A love story that is doomed from the very beginning. It is between two men. A forbidden love, that needs to be destroyed. A love which cannot exist – for the people or for the King. A love story between a French Nobleman, Balthazar and Sebastien, a beautiful and magical adolescent. Theirs is an all-encompassing love affair that…

Title: The Householder
Author: Amitabha Bagchi
Publisher: 4th Estate, Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-93-5029-229-7
Genre: Indian Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 239
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
The householder is expected to set things right in our country. After all, he takes care of the household, doesn’t he? He has to manage a job, the perils of working for someone he may or may not like, the wife at home (who will or will not nag), the children (who will or will not demand), and then maybe some time for himself (if he…

Title: The Infinite Tides
Author: Christian Kiefer
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 978-1-60819-810-8
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 393
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
If there is one book I would recommend you to read this year, amongst other books as well, but of course, “The Infinite Tides” by Christian Kiefer would be one of them for sure. I have read debuts so brilliant. Debuts that do not feel like the book is a first by a particular writer and this for sure falls in that category.
The protagonist of this book –…

Title: Salvage the Bones
Author: Jesmyn Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN:
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages:
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a brilliant read. I read it in a day and wanted more of it as I knew the novel was ending. Each character is alive as ever to be put on paper. The novel is not a happy book. The reader is not expected to end it with a warm, fuzzy feeling in his or her heart. The book is brutal at times and…

Title: The Hunger Angel
Author: Herta Müller
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9301-8
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 290
Rating: 5/5
Herta Müller writes about a time and place that has long been gone; however it could still come back with roaring vengeance. She should not be read because she is a Nobel Laureate. She should be read because she knows her skill – her hunted and most gutted style of tearing of human emotions and exposing them for what they are – raw and without feeling.
I remember the…