Literary Fiction Political

Yongju is an accomplished student from one of North Korea's most prominent families. Jangmi has had to fend for herself since childhood, most recently by smuggling goods across the border. Danny is a Chinese American teenager of North Korean descent whose quirks and precocious intelligence have long marked him as an outcast in his California high school. These three disparate lives converge when each of them travels to the region where China borders North Korea.

A powerful allegorical tale about humanity and dignity and the ease with which we can justify brutality. Two mysterious strangers appear at a hotel in a small country town. Where have they come from? Who are they? What catastrophe are they fleeing? The townspeople want answers, but the strangers are unable to speak of their trauma. And before long, wary hospitality shifts to suspicion and fear, and the care of the men slides into appalling cruelty.

As the host of Radio Free Vermont - "underground, underpowered, and underfoot" - 72-year-old Vern Barclay is currently broadcasting from an "undisclosed and double-secret location". With the help of a young computer prodigy named Perry Alterson, Vern uses his radio show to advocate for a simple yet radical idea: an independent Vermont, one where the state secedes from the United States and operates under a free local economy.

El humor se convierte en el arma que se defiende de la opresión, la injusticia, y la violencia. El gran solitario de Palacio es una obra sobre México, y sin embargo tiene algo del efecto globalizador que caracterizó al Boom latinoamericano: escrita en México, París, y Madrid, se publicó por primera vez en 1971 en Argentina; y de alguna manera representa una realidad que se ha repetido una y otra vez en la historia de Latinoamérica.

Javier Mallarino is a living legend. He is his country's most influential political cartoonist, the consciousness of a nation. A man capable of repealing laws, overturning judges' decisions, destroying politicians' careers with his art. His weapons are pen and ink. Those in power fear him and pay him homage. At 65, after four decades of a brilliant career, he's at the height of his powers. But this all changes when he's paid an unexpected visit from a young woman.

Ceridwen Dovey's debut novel is a stunning literary achievement and an acute character study of three men held captive after a military coup. All linked closely with the deposed president, the portraitist longs for his pregnant wife, the chef takes solace in preparing meals for the new regime, and the barber lives with the knowledge that he'd often held a razor to the throat of the man responsible for his brother's death.

Nineteen fifty-three is synonymous in the British memory with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June. But less well known is what happened in 10 Downing Street on 23 June. With Anthony Eden vying for power, the elderly prime minister, Winston Churchill, must maintain the confidence of his government, the press and the public. But after a diplomatic dinner at which he is in typically sparkling form, Churchill's Italian dining companions are rushed out of the building, and his doctor called.

In the 1980s, a man is pulled up out of the Indian Ocean in Port Pallid, South Africa, claiming to have been kidnapped as a baby. So begins the odyssey of Jimfish, who defies the usual classification of race that defines the rainbow nation. His journey through the last years of Apartheid will extend beyond South Africa to the wider world, where he will be an unlikely witness to the dying days of the 20th century.

Ben has just returned from a war waged against a nameless enemy. To avoid being nabbed by police and forced to work in a factory, he’ll need to find a wife. But to do that, he must wear a bachelor’s suit—and the tailor won’t make one for him.

Gogol's great comic masterpiece paints an hilariously satirical picture of provincial life in 19th century Russia. Its publication in 1847 not only provided inspiration for succeeding generations of Russian writers, but fanned the already flickering flames of social discontent which were eventually to flare up and consume Russia in the revolution of 1917.

Senator Charlie Martin's dilemma is one that has come to haunt contemporary American politics: Is it possible to be a good politician and a good man? Can you live in the public glare and still construct a habitable life? This intriguing tale is the latest from the "Anonymous" author of Primary Colors.

In his only work of political satire, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, John Steinbeck turns the French Revolution upside down as amateur astronomer Pippin Héristal is drafted to rule the unruly French. Steinbeck creates around the infamous Pippin the most hilarious royal court ever: Pippin's wife, Queen Marie, who "might have taken her place at the bar of a very good restaurant"; his uncle, a man of dubious virtue; and his glamour-struck daughter and her beau, the son of the so-called "egg king" of Petaluma, California.

En plena dictadura chilena, un angustiado hombre llega a las oficinas de una revista de oposición. Es un agente de la policía secreta. Quiero hablar, dice, y una periodista prende su grabadora para escuchar un testimonio que abrirá las puertas de una dimensión hasta entonces desconocida. Siguiendo la hebra de esta escena real, Nona Fernández activa los mecanismos de la imaginación para acceder a aquellos rincones donde la memoria y los archivos no han podido llegar.

Número Cero, la nueva novela de Umberto Eco, nos descubre la cara oscura del periodismo y la manera en que nuestra realidad está en manos de quienes construyen las noticias

Mitte der Achtzigerjahre. Berlin und ganz Deutschland teilt eine Mauer. Elias Effert ist Theatermann: Stückeschreiber, Regisseur, Liedermacher. Gerade haben ihm die Kunstwächter in der DDR gesagt, dass sie ihn nicht brauchen. Er kann gehen. Nur einer holt ihn auf dem Bahnsteig in Westberlin mit Blumen ab: Joachim, Chef eines großen Westberliner Theaters. Er will helfen. Aber Effert ist skeptisch und hält sich an Caroline, eine West-Freundin, die er aus Zeiten als erfolgreicher Ost-Künstler kennt. Sie ist bereit, ihn aufzunehmen.

In neun Episoden erzählt Cemile Sahin von neun Menschen, die ihr Exil in einem Hochhaus im Westen der Türkei finden. Sie alle haben Folter, Gewalt und Verschleppung durch Einheiten der türkischen Armee und der Polizei erlebt. Darunter: Eine Mutter, die ihren toten Sohn auf einen Pick-up lädt. Ein Mann, der seine schlafende Tochter draußen ins Gebüsch legt, bevor er sein Haus anzündet. Eine Frau, die angekettet in einer Hundehütte gehalten wird. Während sie von ihrer Flucht berichten, holt sie der systematische Terror des türkischen Militärs wieder ein.

Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader, is placed on trial for crimes that range from corruption to political murder. Petkanov's guilt - and the righteousness of his opponents - would seem to be self-evident. But, as brilliantly imagined by Barnes, the trial of this cunning and unrepentant dictator illuminates the shadowy frontier between the rusted myths of the Communist past and a capitalist future in which everything is up for grabs.

In South Africa, the controversial topic of botched traditional circumcisions has been very much in the news of late. A Man Who Is Not a Man recounts the personal trauma of a young Xhosa initiate after a rite-of-passage circumcision has gone wrong. With frankness and courage, author Thando Mgqolozana's powerful novel details the pain and lifelong shame that is experienced as a result of not just the physical trauma, but the social ostracism of being labeled "a failed man".

With a nod to Samuel Beckett and Bohumil Hrabal, a young dramatist from a West African nation describes a student protest against a brutal oligarchy and its crushing aftermath. While distributing leaflets with provocative quotations from Beckett, Ito Baraka is taken to a camp where torture, starvation, beatings, and rape are normal. Forced to inform on his friends, whose fates he now fears, and released a broken man, he is enabled to escape to Quebec. His one goal is to tell the story of the protest and pay homage to Koli Lem, a teacher, cellmate, and lover of books....

The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture?