The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (2025) Kiran Desai "I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai's tale-devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic-grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confronts a central question: What does it mean to belong? How does one reach ever toward the future when haunted by the past? This poignant novel-rich with culture, heartbreak, and hope-was an unmitigated joy to read."
Hard by a Great Forest (2024) Leo Vardiashvili "This novel annihilated me. I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it. Rich with irony and animated with astonishing humanity, this tale of a young Georgian refugee's odyssey into his birthplace to rescue family left my heart bruised and battered and aching for more."
Exult (2009) Joe Quirk "There is gusto in Exult. Quirk dares ask some of life's most fundamental questions: Why do we die, and after we are gone, will we have meant anything at all? How should we spend the time we have been given on this earth?"
River of Words (2009) James A Levine "A deeply moving story and a searing reminder of the resilience of the human spirit."
The Cellist of Sarajevo (2008) Steven Galloway "Though the setting is the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, this gripping novel transcends time and place. It is a universal story, and a testimony to the struggle to find meaning, grace, and humanity, even amid the most unimaginable horrors."
Rostam (2007) Abolqasem Ferdowsi "Davis's wonderful translation will show Western readers why Ferdowsi's masterpiece is one of the most revered and most beloved classics in the Persian world."
Dinaw Mengestu "A rich and lyrical story... I was profoundly moved by this tale... With effortless prose, Mengestu makes us feel this tortured soul's longings, regrets, and in the end, his dreams of meaningful human connection."
