Year Ender 2018

There is no part of the human condition and diverse emotion that writers do not reach to engage, inform, and, perhaps entertain readers. The causes close to so many writers’ hearts include sexism, racism, abuse, and there’s always a plea for tolerance, inclusivity and a better, kinder world. It is always difficult to select just ten books out of the thousands that are published and read the world over. As always, there are too many books and too little time.

A list of ten favourite books (International) of the year that deal with social issues:

1. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The black protagonist in Tayari Jones’s novel is convicted for a rape he did not commit, and while his wife fights the legal system to undo the injustice done to her husband, she is unable to put her own life and career on hold for a cause that may already be lost.

2. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Nigerian-American writer Tomi Adeyemi’s moving book weaves African myths with contemporary issues like oppression, race, war and violence in this YA fantasy novel in which young Zélie Adebola sets out to restore magic in the country of Orïsha.

3. Circe by Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller’s book, on every best-selling list this year, gives a feminist spin to one of the lesser known characters from Greek mythology.

4. Elevation by Stephen King

Stephen King’s slim novella is about a man with a life-threatening problem of his own, who stands up against the whole town to take the side of his lesbian neighbours facing a problem of acceptance in a conservative society.

5. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Through the working relationship between a famous feminist writer and her admiring disciple, Meg Wolitzer examines where women stand today in a society that cares more about appearances that doing something to help women in trouble.

6. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai’s novel (shortlisted for the Booker among other award) is set in the Chicago of the mid-80s and Paris at the time of the 2015 terrorist attacks, and talks about the AIDS epidemic as a mother searches for her estranged daughter.

7. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Chloe Benjamin's sprawling novel about four siblings whose lives are marked by a psychic's prediction of the dates of their death, envelops themes like gay love, AIDS, a more humane approach of science towards wildlife and the environment and of course the hold of superstition on impressionable minds.

8. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kusher’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel takes a sharp look at the legal system that is so unfair to a poor woman, and the bleak prison life that gradually destroy whatever little humanity or hope is left in the hearts of the inmates as well as the guards.

9. The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani

Leila Slimani’s Goncourt Prize winner tells the story of a nanny who has killed two children she is hired to look after, but under the thriller format is an astute analysis of class and race tensions.

10. Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman's sequel to the searing Beartown in which an arrogant young sports star rapes a girl, a town dependent on ice hockey for its existence, has to decide, when faced with economic ruin, whether it can do justice to the victim who has been wronged.