by Jhumpa Lahiri (2003)
The Namesake is Jhumpa Lahiri's poignant debut novel expanding upon the themes of her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection. It follows the Ganguli family, who leave Calcutta for Cambridge, Massachusetts, focusing on their son Gogol Ganguli as he navigates the tangled burdens of heritage, cultural displacement, identity, and his awkward, inherited name.
H. Nigel Thomas
Behind the Face of Winter is an essential work by H. Nigel Thomas (2001), examining critical themes of civil rights, racial justice, and human resilience. A cornerstone selection on the acclaimed #BlackLivesMatter reading list, it offers profound social commentary, historical resonance, and transformative insight.
Angie Cruz
Cara Romero thought she would work at the lamp factory for the rest of her life. But when she loses her job in the Great Recession at in her mid-50s, she is forced back into the workforce and meets with a job counselor across twelve sessions, recounting her tumultuous life, family feuds, gentrification, and fierce Dominican resilience.
Janika Oza
A History of Burning is Janika Oza's sweeping, multi-generational debut novel spanning four continents and five generations. Beginning with Pirbhai, an Indian boy forced into indentured labor building the East African railway in 1898, the novel traces a family through Ugandan expulsion and resettlement across England and Canada, testifying to the enduring flames of family solidarity.
Ayad Akhtar
Homeland Elegies is a devastating and genre-defying masterpiece by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar. Part memoir, part political inquiry, and part family epic, it examines post-9/11 America, father-son bonds, and the unraveling of the American dream through the lens of a Pakistani-American Muslim family.