Celeste Ng is the author of the novel Everything I Never Told You (June 2014, Penguin Press). She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. Celeste attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan), where she won the Hopwood Award. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly,Bellevue Literary Review, the Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize.
Currently she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son, where she teaches fiction writing at Grub Street and is at work on a second novel and a collection of short stories.
A Thousand Times Before (2024) Asha Thanki "A rich family saga about art and memory's power to inform the present, make peace with the past, and maybe even alter the future."
The Prospectors (2023) Ariel Djanikian "Told in glimmering prose and rich with historical detail, The Prospectors immerses us in the Yukon Gold Rush so deeply, you can feel the grit on your hands."
The Laughter (2023) Sonora Jha "Sonora Jha expertly inhabits the perspective of a man so terrified of the old world slipping away, he can't see the ground shifting beneath his feet. A deliciously sharp, mercilessly perceptive exploration of power, The Laughter explores how 'otherness' is both fetishized and demonized, and what it means to love something - a person, a country - that does not love you back."
Maame (2023) Jessica George "Utterly charming and deeply moving . . . Maddie's journey will resonate with anyone who's had to grow up - or who's still trying to."
Central Places (2023) Delia Cai "A sensitive, sharp-eyed, slyly funny novel of venturing back into the foreign country that is your past--and discovering that you can never really shake the places and people that shaped you."
Brotherless Night (2023) V V Ganeshananthan "With immense compassion and deep moral complexity, V. V. Ganeshananthan brings us an achingly moving portrait of individual and societal grief."
A Map for the Missing (2022) Belinda Huijuan Tang "Belinda Huijuan Tang's debut novel is a beautifully drawn, sensitively rendered portrait of a man desperately searching for his father - and for reconnection to the past and people he once knew and loved. Both rich in historical detail and timeless in scope, A Map for the Missing explores the costs of choosing your own path, whether what's left behind can ever be retrieved, and whether it is possible to forgive the wounds we inevitably inflict on each other."
Mercury Pictures Presents (2022) Anthony Marra "Crackling with wit and suffused with insight, Anthony Marra's new novel is as epic in sweep as a movie set yet it delineates the inner workings of the human heart with a miniaturist's precision. Mercury Pictures Presents explores the endless give-and-take between life and art, the cost of integrity, and the ways we must make peace with the past in order to move forward toward the future. A genuinely moving and life-affirming novel that's a true joy to read."
Kaleidoscope (2022) Cecily Wong "Sparkling with sharp observations and deeply wise in its insights, Kaleidoscope is a moving portrayal of the tangled knot of sisterhood and the dizzying spiral of grief. Cecily Wong's dazzling second novel deftly explores the complex push-pull of family and ambition, and the ways we learn to define ourselves in--and out of--our loved ones' orbits."
Woman of Light (2022) Kali Fajardo-Anstine "Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you're swimming under a big, sparkling night sky."
Take My Hand (2022) Dolen Perkins-Valdez "Deeply empathetic yet unflinching in its gaze...an unforgettable exploration of responsibility and redemption."
Joan is Okay (2022) Weike Wang "A deeply felt portrait . . . With gimlet-eyed observation laced with darkly biting wit, Weike Wang masterfully probes the existential uncertainty of being other in America."
Gold Diggers (2021) Sanjena Sathian "In a perfect alchemical blend of familiar and un-, Gold Diggers takes a wincingly hilarious coming-of-age story, laces it with magical realism and a trace of satire, and creates a world that's both achingly familiar and marvelously inventive. Written with such assurance it's hard to believe it's Sanjena Sathian's debut, this is a dizzyingly original, fiercely funny, deeply wise novel about the seductive powers—and dangers—of borrowed ambition."
New Waves (2020) Kevin Nguyen "A knowing, witty, and thought-provoking exploration of love, modern isolation, and what it means to exist—especially as a person of color—in our increasingly digital age."
The Age of Light (2019) Whitney Scharer "A startlingly modern love story and a mesmerizing portrait of a woman’s self-transformation from muse into artist."
A River of Stars (2018) Vanessa Hua "A River of Stars splits the ‘Chinese immigrant story’ into a kaleidoscopic spectrum, putting human faces to the many groups—rich and poor, privileged and marginalized, documented and not—who come to America. Vanessa Hua’s debut is an utterly absorbing novel about the ruthless love of parenthood and the universal truth that sometimes family runs deeper than blood alone."
The Incendiaries (2018) R O Kwon "In dazzlingly acrobatic prose, R. O. Kwon explores the lines between faith and fanaticism, passion and violence, the rational and the unknowable."
That Kind of Mother (2018) Rumaan Alam "Dives deep into big questions about parenthood, adoption, and race...With his unerring eye for nuance and unsparing sense of irony, Rumaan Alam’s second novel is both heartfelt and thought-provoking."
The Ensemble (2018) Aja Gabel "Aja Gabel's powerful debut offers a sensitive portrait of four young musicians forging their paths through life: sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes in harmony, but always inextricably linked by their shared pasts."
Bury What We Cannot Take (2018) Kirstin Chen "Bury What We Cannot Take explores what it takes to survive in a world gone mad—and what is lost when we do. Kirstin Chen has written both an engrossing historical drama and a nuanced exploration of how far the bonds of familial love can stretch."
Back Talk (2018) Danielle Lazarin "The best collection I've read in years, from a phenomenal new talent."
Brass (2018) Xhenet Aliu "A fierce, big-hearted, unflinching debut."
Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) (Bois Sauvage, book 2) Jesmyn Ward "A searing, urgent read for anyone who thinks the shadows of slavery and Jim Crow have passed, and anyone who assumes the ghosts of the past are easy to placate. It's hard to imagine a more necessary book for this political era."
Woman No. 17 (2017) Edan Lepucki "Edan Lepucki shows herself to be a sharp-eyed chronicler of our modern world."
Our Short History (2017) Lauren Grodstein "Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it’s bigger - and stronger - than before."
Leaving Lucy Pear (2016) Anna Solomon "Leaving Lucy Pear is that rare combination of stunning language, raw emotion, and profound wisdom that catches you up and wrings you out and yet somehow leaves you fuller than when you began. In this tender new novel, Anna Solomon looks at our most fundamental relationships - between mothers, children, and lovers - with more compassion and grace than seems humanly possible."
Bellweather Rhapsody (2014) Kate Racculia "A deliciously dark confection of a novel, and one of the most thoroughly enjoyable books I've read in years."
