The Quincunx author’s sixth book, the story of a family in crisis in an authoritarian regime, is exquisitely plotted and satisfying For readers of a certain age, Charles Palliser’s name is so deeply associated with his massive debut novel, The Quincunx, a literary mystery that was on every bedside table in the 1990s, that you would be forgiven for...

The spoken word artist and podcaster’s hybrid of social history and rallying cry is heartfelt, if occasionally hectoringGeorge Mpanga, better known as George the Poet, is a British-Ugandan spoken word artist, poet and rapper. In 2019 he was offered, and turned down, an MBE, a gesture indicative of his progressive politics. He is best known for his award-winning...

Four women tell of the rise and fall of a notorious real-life mobster in this evocative second novel from the Costa prize winnerIn the late 1940s and early 50s, notorious gangster turned pirate Boysie Singh terrorised Port of Spain and the Gulf of Paria. Boysie and his gang transported human cargo from Trinidad and Tobago to Venezuela, robbing their...

An absorbing study of five Labour radicals – Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, John McDonnell, Ken Livingstone, plus Benn himself – makes a convincing case for their cultural victories but romanticises Corbyn’s years as the party’s leaderThis might seem like an eccentric book. As Labour prepares for power after four consecutive general election defeats,...

The author of bestseller Yellowface on her agent’s fears about publishing the novel, the joys of a social media purge and being a workaholic who gets bored easilyRebecca F Kuang, 27, is an American writer. She and her family emigrated to the US from Guangzhou, China, when she was four; she grew up in Dallas, Texas. Her first novel, The Poppy War, a...

Inscrutable bureaucracy and monstrous insects may not sound immediately appealing, but once you’re lost in Kafka’s world you won’t want to escapeKafka has become such a cultural icon that even the most private, obscure, or fragmentary of his writings have reached huge audiences: diaries, letters, unpublished notes, mystifying aphorisms, or conversation...