Set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war, Ru Freeman’s epic novel explores the lives of the diverse families that live on Sal Mal Lane and the heartbreaking ways this once harmonious community turns on one another with the country on the brink of war.On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there. As each neighbour adapts to the newcomers...

SHE LOVED FINE THINGS***,*** AND SHE HAD NO DOUBT THAT SHE DESERVED THEM***. . . .***Young Latha knows that she was not meant to be a servant. She was born for finer things, like the rose-smelling soap she steals from the family she has worked for since she was five, or the glasses of fresh lime juice she helps herself to after a long day. But the hard truth is that her life is tied to Thara, the family’s spoiled daughter, and for the next thirty years they grow up bound by love, b...

Sign & Breath is a new critical anthology that takes a different approach to exploring these questions: What is poetry? What defines voice? Featuring a range of contemporary artists, many of whom work across different mediums and genres, Sign & Breath introduces the reader to one page that sings in any genre – prose, fiction, poetry, spoken word, hybrid forms, and song – across diverse traditions. Rather than define poetry as a genre with conventions, traditions, codes, a...

In this collection of rich and textured stories about crossing borders, both real and imagined, Sleeping Alone asks one of the fundamental questions of our times: What is the toll of feeling foreign in one’s land, to others, or even to oneself? A cast of misfits, young and old, single and coupled, even entire family units, confront startling changes wrought by difficult circumstances or harrowing choices.These stories span the world, moving from Maine to Sri Lanka, from Du...

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world.The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic lin...

Set against the volatile events of the last forty years of Sri Lankan history, A Disobedient Girl traces the lives of three characters whose interwoven fates and histories force them to answer life's most difficult questions. Beautiful, haunting, alive, and brimming with truth, it is, above all, a novel about extraordinary circumstances that change life in an instant and the power of love to transcend time and place.The story begins with two little girls, mistress and serv...

An international bestseller and finalist for the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, The Age of Reinvention is a "suspenseful...Gatsby-esque odyssey...laced with provocative observations of prejudice, politics, and sexism" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).Top Manhattan criminal defense attorney Sam Tahar seems to have it all: fame, fortune, an enviable marriage to a prominent socialite, and two wonderful children. But his s...

Julie Otsuka’s commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination—both physical and emotional—of a generation of Japanese Americans. In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view—the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family’...

A Suitable Boy meets Gone with the Wind in this sweeping, romantic debut novel set on a coffee plantation in southern India at the turn of the twentieth century.As the first girl born to the Nachimanda family in over sixty years, the beautiful Devi is adored by her entire family. Strong-willed and confident, she befriends the shy Devanna, a young boy whose mother has died under tragic circumstances. The two quickly become inseparable, until Devi meets Machu the ti...

An authentic, wrenching novel chronicling a young girl's coming of age in turbulent, bustling, contemporary NigeriaSpirited and intelligent, Morayo grows up surrounded by school friends and family in busy, modern-day Ibadan. An adoring little sister, their traditional parents, and a host of aunties and cousins make Morayo's home their own, so there's nothing unusual about her charming but troubled cousin, Bros T, moving in with the family. At first Morayo and her sister are delight...

From the bestselling author of Women Talking**, All My Puny Sorrows, and A Complicated Kindness, and Women Talking comes an extraordinary memoir about her father and his struggle with manic depression.**One morning, Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and immensely popular school teacher, he was a pillar o...

New York Times Bestseller• USA Today Bestseller • Publishers Weekly BestsellerPeople's Book of the WeekAnnual Library of Virginia Literary Awards Nominee for FictionAdriana Trigiani, theNew York Times bestselling author of the blockbuster epic The Shoemaker's Wife, returns with her biggest and boldest novel yet, a hypnotic tale b...