In Twist, Colum McCann examines what connects us
His thrilling new novel traces the mysterious cables stretching across our ocean beds.
ByFiction reviews
Discover the best contemporary literature with the New Statesman’s expert reviews. From debut novels to short stories and literary veterans, get inspired here.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s everyday dystopia
Never Let Me Go was once dismissed by critics for its “dear-diary” prose, but 20 years later the novelist’s masterwork…
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Inside the media circus
Natasha Brown’s Universality is a wincing satire of journalism, publishing and cancel culture.
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Curtis Sittenfeld’s ordinary lives
The stories in her zeitgeisty collection Show Don’t Tell are dated by their cultural references, but their astute observations are…
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s triumphant return
Dream Count, the Nigerian writer’s first novel in more than a decade, is a powerful exploration of misogyny, masculinity and…
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Eimear McBride’s literature of desire
The Irish author’s exhilarating fourth novel, The City Changes Its Face, proves there is nobody writing sex like her.
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The death of the British Catholic novel
Catholicism gave English literature something it needs to rediscover.
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Han Kang’s radical empathy
As with all the Nobel Prize-winning South Korean writer’s stories, We Do Not Part rejects escapism to reach into the…
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How we misread The Great Gatsby
The greatness of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel lies in its details. But they are often overlooked.
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Yukio Mishima’s lifelong death wish
The Japanese writer and nationalist, a darling of the US far right, was haunted by the aesthetics of self-destruction.
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Elsa Morante’s wild, compelling fiction
This vivid story of class and family by the rediscovered Italian novelist was where Elena Ferrante “discovered what literature can…
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25 books to read in 2025
From AI to the Beatles and from Pope Francis to Jung Chang, here are the new books to look out…
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The 20 best books of 2024
The New Statesman’s choice of the year’s essential fiction and non-fiction.
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Anthony Burgess’s Napoleon complex
In Napoleon Symphony, the life of the French statesman was transformed into a virtuoso romp that still dazzles 50 years…
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James Lee Burke’s garden of good and evil
Over 24 novels, the bruised Louisiana detectives Robicheaux and Purcel have become one of crime writing’s great partnerships.
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The making of Barbara Kingsolver
In Holding the Line, the author’s newly republished account of the 1983 Arizona miners’ strike, the novelist and the reporter…
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The resurrection of John le Carré
In Karla’s Choice the late spy novelist’s son Nick Harkaway has revived George Smiley – but he cannot match the…
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Sally Rooney’s adventures in style
In Intermezzo, the Irish writer swaps polished wit and graphic sex for something deeper, messier and more mature.
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Janet Frame’s asylum dreams
The New Zealand author, born 100 years ago, was both tormented and inspired by her experience of mental illness.
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Romance on the run in the Old West
Kevin Barry’s new novel The Heart in Winter sets passion against violence on the brutal American frontier.
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