Colm Tóibín’s sounds of silence
In his latest collection of stories, Tóibín endows his characters with plenty of feelings but fewer words
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.
O Father, where art thou?
Literature still looks to the clergy for answers
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Brandon Taylor’s rebellious representations
Minor Black Figures novel depicts a black aesthete struggling to defy the fraught expectations of the art world
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The dark shadow of Palestinian exile
Hannah Lillith Assadi’s latest novel, Paradiso 17, draws on her father’s displacement
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Asako Yuzuki’s acquired taste
Butter author Asako Yuzuki’s latest novel offers clues about what is behind the vogue for Japanese fiction
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Time-travelling angels in the Blitz
Francis Spufford’s new novel Nonesuch combines WW2 and wizards
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James Meek’s broken Britain
The LRB essayist’s new novel draws from his reporting on a dysfunctional nation
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Dirty realism goes supernatural
The writer’s new novel Vigil suffers from its ambition
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Chomsky against Foucault against Dworkin – who cares?
Ideas overpower meaning in Sophie Ward’s packed novel
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The moral grammar of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s Pakistan
This Is Where the Serpent Lives depicts a world shaped by non-Western values
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Julian Barnes departs on his own terms
Departure(s) is the novelist’s moving and inventive final book
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Ali Smith’s infectious hope
For two pairs of sisters in her new novel Glyph, storytelling is a way of dealing with troubles past and…
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The best fiction to read this year
Despite the doomsters, novels continue to thrive. From Julian Barnes to Leïla Slimani, this will be a great 12 months…
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Joy Williams and humanity’s ultimate failure
The author’s new collection of short stories is haunted by animals – and by our failed stewardship of the natural…
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DH Lawrence and the superiority of fiction
The Goldsmiths Prize Lecture on 100 years of the writer’s seminal essay “Why the Novel Matters”
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In the autumn of Salman Rushdie
The author’s late style in The Eleventh Hour, his new collection of fiction, reveals a venerable writer displaced by time
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Jeanette Winterson’s thousand and one yawns
The author’s latest novel blandly reimagines the Arabian Nights tales
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Klaus Kinski, wrath of god
Benjamin Myers’ new novel follows the actor trailing both chaos and charisma in one infamous theatre production about Christ
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Jon Fosse’s war on convention
In his first novel since winning the Nobel Prize, the Norwegian author heads a radical counter-movement in publishing that spurns…
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Thomas Pynchon’s lasting triumph
His latest novel borrows too freely from his previous work. But what work it has been
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