Asako Serizawa recommends
A Woman of Pleasure (2024)
Kiyoko Murata
"With crystalline economy precisely calibrated to a world where money, beauty, power, and the lifeforce of women are measured against the value of pleasure and exchanged for survival, Kiyoko Murata's novel comes alive with exacting force. Reading A Woman of Pleasure is like walking into the stratified rooms of Shinonome vibrant with a kaleidoscopic range of perspectives, each drawn with such nuance and sensitivity that they held me as captive as the changing, patriarchal world of early 1900s Japan held this community of women and girls. A marvel."
Coleman Hill (2023)
Kim Coleman Foote
"As though lit by the spirit of Audre Lorde, Kim Coleman Foote's Coleman Hill is a furnace, incandescent with characters who flare and burn, reflecting and refracting the complex ways collective trauma ripples down through the generations. Rare is a writer who bears witness to an intimate national history of violence with an unflinching eye so full of understanding. Coleman Hill is a masterful, singular debut. I loved this book."
God's Children Are Little Broken Things (2022)
Arinze Ifeakandu
"An exquisite, complex examination of the vulnerabilities of queer love and desire amid family fears, dreams, and the power of expectations, God's Children Are Little Broken Things is a shimmering, beguiling debut."
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