From Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years.      When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison.  Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning".     This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.

From Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years.      When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison.  Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning".     This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ—the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim. Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.

High in the Accursed Mountains, in a village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekja escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most. Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realisation of all that might have been.

High in the Accursed Mountains, in a village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekja escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most. Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realisation of all that might have been.

La aventura de la ciencia convertida en literatura. Un libro inclasificable y poderosamente seductor. Las narraciones incluidas en este libro singular y fascinante tienen un hilo conductor que las entrelaza: la ciencia, con sus búsquedas, tentativas, experimentos e hipótesis, y los cambios que –para bien y para mal– introduce en el mundo y en nuestra visión de él. Por estas páginas circulan descubrimientos reales que forman una larga cadena perturbadora: el primer pigmento sintético moderno, el azul de Prusia, creado en el siglo XVIII gracias a un alquimista que buscaba el Elixir de la Vida mediante crueles experimentos con animales vivos, se convierte en el origen del cianuro de hidrógeno, gas mortal que el químico judío alemán Fritz Haber, padre de la guerra química, empleó para elaborar el pesticida Zyklon, sin saber que los nazis acabarían utilizándolo en los campos de exterminio para asesinar a miembros de su propia familia. También asistimos a las exploraciones matemáticas de Alexander Grothendieck, que le llevaron al delirio místico, el aislamiento social y la locura; a la carta enviada a Einstein por un amigo moribundo desde las trincheras de la Primera Guerra Mundial, con la solución de las ecuaciones de la relatividad y el primer augurio de los agujeros negros; y a la lucha entre los dos fundadores de la mecánica cuántica –Erwin Schrödinger y Werner Heisenberg– que generó el principio de incertidumbre y la famosa respuesta que Einstein le gritó a Niels Bohr: «¡Dios no juega a los dados con el universo!» La literatura explora la ciencia, la ciencia se convierte en literatura. Benjamín Labatut ha escrito un libro inclasificable y poderosamente seductor, que habla de descubrimientos fruto del azar, teorías que bordean la locura, búsquedas alquímicas del conocimiento y la exploración de los límites de lo desconocido.

Initially a little intrigued, all babies eventually return the security guard's smile. The security guard adores babies. Perhaps because babies do not shoplift. Babies adore the security guard. Perhaps because he does not drag babies to the sales. The 1960s - Ferdinand arrives in Paris from Côte d'Ivoire, ready to take on the world and become a big somebody. The 1990s - It is the Golden Age of immigration, and Ossiri and Kassoum navigate a Paris on the brink of momentous change. The 2010s - In a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées, the all-seeing eyes of a security guard observes the habits of those who come to worship at this church to consumerism. Amidst the political bickering of the inhabitants of the Residence for Students from Côte d'Ivoire and the ever-changing landscape of French immigration policy, Ferdinand, Ossiri and Kassoum, two generations of Ivoirians, attempt to make their way as undocumented workers, taking shifts as security at a flour mill. Sharply satirical, political and poignant, Standing Heavy is a searingly witty deconstruction of colonial legacies and capitalist consumption, an unprecedented and unforgettable account of everything that passes under a security guard's gaze. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne "Inventive and very funny" Guardian "A compact, humane satire" Financial Times