Uzodinma Iweala - Speak No Evil & Ian MacKenzie - Feast Days

Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation was a stunning debut. It earned the writer a host of prizes, including the New York Public Library Young Lions 2006 Fiction Award and a place among Granta‘s 2007 Best Young American Novelists. Iweala’s eagerly-awaited second novel is the story of two privileged teenagers growing up in Washington, D.C. Niru has always been the perfect son. A top scholar and a stellar athlete, he’s headed for Harvard. But he’s also queer, and afraid to come out to his conservative Nigerian parents. When they discover his secret accidentally, their response is explosive. Niru turns to his best friend, Meredith, for help, but she’s undergoing difficulties of her own. Iweala’s book is unflinching in its evocation of the pain of being different in a culture that demands conformity.

While the narrator of MacKenzie’s powerful second novel feels she suffers from an “affliction of vagueness,” there is nothing vague about this finely-observed portrait of a woman, a marriage, and the modern world. Featuring the taut prose and philosophical underpinnings critics praised in City of Strangers, the narrative follows Emma, a “trailing spouse” who moves from New York to São Paulo with her banker husband. While aware of her privileged position, Emma is also attuned to the country’s unrest. She gradually trades leisurely teas for helping refugees at a neighborhood church as her own restlessness and dissatisfaction grow alongside the country’s social and political turmoil.