Hafsa Zayyan s prizewinning debut introduces us to Sameer, a 26-year-old Cambridge graduate and high flying lawyer in a prestigious London firm. Having moved from Leicester with childhood friends, Rahool and Jeremiah, Sameer is finding that with his career taking off - he s been asked to help set up his firm s new Singapore office - the three friends are growing apart.
Itching to get your hands on some novels from fresh talent? This year s new authors are covering a cornucopia of subjects ranging from chilling crime to love stories set to be adapted for screen.
Here are just some of the new names that should bring joy during lockdown and beyond. Keep an eye on publishing dates, which could be prone to change.
Thrills and chills
1. Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler (4th Estate, Feb 4)
Online fakery is certainly a zeitgeist topic and this terrific debut sees a young woman who suspects her boyfriend of cheating, go through his phone. In doing so, she discovers he has a secret online identity as a conspiracy theorist. It provides much food for thought about how to maintain a sense of self in a world of online fraudsters.
When Hafsa Zayyan was a child she wrote letters to her paternal grandfather in Nigeria. He would send back a marked-up version of her letter, correcting its grammatical mistakes. “He didn’t realise
2021 reading list: 20 anticipated books to look out for this year
The search for voice and identity as well as social and climate issues rule in this list of reads My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh; translated by Aida Bamia. Published by Hoopoe. Courtesy American University in Cairo Press Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri. Courtesy Bloomsbury Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic. Courtesy Bloomsbury The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji and the Case of the Foreigner in the English Village by Shrabani Basu. Courtesy Bloomsbury A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. Courtesy Bloomsbury
Everyone’s Talking About.
No One Is Talking About This (Bloomsbury, February) by Patricia Lockwood, the ‘Poet Laureate of Twitter’, is set to be one of 2021’s buzziest books: a riveting novel about the collision between real and online life.
Meanwhile, the sexy and absurdly readable Luster by Raven Leilani (Picador, January) is an unflinching interrogation of racial and sexual politics that carries ringing endorsements from Zadie Smith and Candice Carty-Williams.
Rahul Raina’s How To Kidnap The Rich (Little Brown, May) has already been optioned by HBO: a Delhi-set, reality TV-based literary crime crossover, it will appeal to fans of Parasite and Crazy Rich Asians.