All Men Want to Know

"Other box-fresh novels of note include the French literary superstar Nina Bouraoui’s new novel All Men Want to Know. Hardly a debut, but this is the first time that Bouraoui’s work has been translated into English. This new work of autofiction , in an award-winning translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, is a dreamy, fragmentary account of Bouraoui’s coming of age as a French-Algerian gay woman, which has been a publishing phenomenon in continental Europe. Five Books alumnus Yiyun Li ‘s latest novel, Must I Go – released at the end of July – portrays a woman in her eighties as she reflects upon her life – and the suicide of her daughter some decades previously – by way of annotations in the diary of a former lover. Fans of Li’s work may be aware of her harrowing and remarkable book Where Reasons End , written after her 16-year-old son took his own life. This too is a poignant, experimental literary work wrought of intense pain – written with Li’s trademark intelligence and emotional complexity. By no means an easy read, but worthwhile. Science fiction and fantasy (SFF) fans may be excited to learn of Jeff and Ann Vandermeer’s new anthology, The Big Book of Modern Fantasy , in which they have gathered 91 stories by authors from Jorge Luis Borges to Stephen King, by way of Ursula K. Le Guin and Angela Carter. There’s also a lot of buzz around Lauren Beuke’s dystopian thriller Afterland – out now – billed as The Children of Men meets The Handmaid’s Tale . In it, a mother and son journey across a post-apocalyptic United States, where a pandemic has wiped out 99% of the world’s men. (Tom Hunter, our friend at the Arthur C. Clarke Award , also advises us to keep our eyes peeled for a new novel from Yoon Ha Lee, Phoenix Extravagant , in October.)"