The Last White Man: A Novel

"Anders wakes up one day to find he no longer recognizes himself. His white skin has turned brown. Soon, he’s not alone. The Last White Man’s opening chapter suits a novel that grew from a Kafkaesque era of pandemic and protest. The device feels familiar to readers of author Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. The laws of reality mutate. What was once surreal becomes normal, but not before exposing the societal fissures that many felt, but not all could see. Some react with suspicion, others with tenderness. The Last White Man insists: When you feel the earth shift, who will you offer kindness to?"

"Mohsin Hamid ( The Reluctant Fundamentalist , Exit West ) returns with The Last White Man, a work of speculative fiction in which people wake up, unexpectedly, with different skin tones. Kirkus described it as “a brilliantly realized allegory of racial transformation.” (Out August 2.) I’m also intrigued by Louisa Reid’s novel-in-verse The Poet ( out now in the UK , available as ebook or audiobook in the US), a story of a dysfunctional relationship that should appeal to fans of Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation . Plus there’s Nell Zink’s latest, Avalon , a coming-of-age story featuring a Californian plant nursery, biker gangs and a pretentious college student boyfriend. The book I’ve been raving about recently to anyone willing to listen is the French writer Emmanuel Carrère’s new (and somewhat controversial ) work of autofiction, Yoga . Autofiction is a slippery term—it usually refers to a novel that draws heavily on the author’s own life, but with a veil of doubt drawn over the narrative—and this case is one of the slipperiest of all. In it, we follow the author through a major life crisis as he suffers a mental collapse, spends time in a psychiatric institution, volunteers in a refugee camp, and (off-screen) experiences the break-up of his decade-long marriage."