2021 Fiction Debuts

"A debut story collection offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of life for contemporary Chinese people, set between China and the United States"--

"Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she's thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only...

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about what he called "Double Consciousness," a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma. To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression...

"In 1986, the teenage daughter of a wealthy family gets lost in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed by the experience. In 2009, pressed into a dangerous scheme by a former lover, a woman captures a rare two-headed cobra. And in 2011, a young, unhappy American living in Saigon with her sort-of boyfriend, disappears without a trace. Over the course of the novel, the fates of these three women will lock...

"[A novel] about three women--transgender and cisgender--whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex..."--

A virtuosic debut collection that roves across genres and styles, by a finalist for the Caine Prize. In her powerful, genre-bending debut story collection, Nana Nkweti's virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story "It Takes a Village, Some Say," Nkweti skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages...

An ambitious mother steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. As the mother's symptoms intensify, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, "A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical...

"A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life-immersive and comic, yet unsparing-that marks the arrival of an indisputable new talent in American fiction"--

Mizuki has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It's everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband. Afer meeting Kiyoshi, Mizuki rediscovers freedom, friendship, and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she...

Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women,...