JANUARY

The publication of a novel from Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész is an early highlight of the literary year. A couple of intriguing books about threatened minority cultures – Native American and Basque – are also published this month.

Flight
By Sherman Alexie
Grove Press, Black Cat/Harvill Secker
$13.00/£18.99, 192 pages

Native American Alexie kills off his 15-year-old narrator in chapter three of this novel – a blend of science fiction and history.

The Accordionist’s Son
By Bernardo Atxaga
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Harvill Secker £18.99, 400 pages

The Basque writer’s best-known work, Obabakoak (1988), won him Spain’s National Literature Prize. Its fictional setting, the village of Obaba, also features in his latest novel – about growing up during the Spanish civil war.

20 Fragments of Ravenous Youth
By Xiaolu Guo
Translated by Rebecca Morris and Pamela Casey
Chatto & Windus £12.99, 208 pages

A renowned film-maker, the Chinese polymath’s new novel about film extras in Beijing is illustrated with images from her cinematic work.

The Abstinence Teacher
By Tom Perrotta
St Martin’s Press/Fourth Estate
$24.95/£12.99, 336 pages

A candid chronicler of modern America, Perrotta made his name with his fourth novel, Little Children (2004), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. The Boston-based writer now explores the influence of the US Christian right through the story of a sex education teacher.

Detective Story
By Imre Kertész
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
Knopf/Harvill Secker
$21.00/£12.99, 120 pages

Kertész survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The Hungarian’s most famous, semi-autobiographical work, Fateless, is narrated by a teenager in a concentration camp. He now chillingly inverts this format: his latest narrator is a torturer, rather than one of his victims.

A Quiet Adjustment
By Benjamin Markovits
Faber £12.99, 240 pages

Last year Texan-in-London Markovits brought out Imposture, the first in a trilogy about Byron. This second novel focuses on the poet’s scandalous love life – including his relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh.

FEBRUARY

This month’s eclectic fiction includes new work from another Nobel laureate, Portugal’s José Saramago, and from one of Australasia’s greatest living writers, Peter Carey.

His Illegal Self
By Peter Carey
Knopf/Faber, $24.95/£16.99
300 pages

Twice winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction (Oscar and Lucinda, 1988, and True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001), Carey is the master of tricky tales in which it is never certain where the truth lies. His 10th novel concerns a child of militant 1960s activists who discovers the past is not all it seems.

Counting the Stars
By Helen Dunmore
Fig Tree £16.99, 288 pages

Set against the decadence and brutality of the late Roman Republic, this offering from the much-lauded novelist, poet and children’s writer brings to life an intense affair between the poet Catullus and a married woman.

The Clothes on Their Backs
By Linda Grant
Virago/Little, Brown £17.99
304 pages

Orange Prize winner (When I Lived in Modern Times, 2000) Grant’s fifth novel raises serious questions about clothing and identity when a bookish girl is bedazzled by the arrival of her sartorially resplendent uncle.

The Rowing Lesson
By Anne Landsman
Soho Press/Granta
$23.00/£12, 224 pages

This beautifully written, elegiac second novel from the South African-born author of The Devil’s Chimney follows a complex father-daughter relationship.

The Indian Clerk
By David Leavitt
Bloomsbury USA/Bloomsbury
$24.95/£16.99, 496 pages

A tale of suppressed homosexual love and mathematical genius set in the early 20th century, from the author of The Body of Jonah Boyd (2004).

We are Now Beginning Our Descent
By James Meek
Canongate US/Canongate
$24.00/£16.99, 302 pages

Meek received rave reviews for his third novel, The People’s Act of Love (2005), about a revolutionary in a Siberian community of eunuchs. A former award-winning foreign correspondent, Meek has now written this tale of a war reporter in Afghanistan.

Out of Breath
By Julie Myerson
Jonathan Cape £12.99, 304 pages

A darkly original tale of fugitive children, this is the sixth novel from Financial Times columnist Myerson – whose previous fiction includes the Man Booker long-listed Something Might Happen (2003).

The Truth Commissioner
By David Park
Bloomsbury USA/Bloomsbury
$24.95/£14.99, 384 pages

Teacher and novelist Park examines the subjective nature of truth in this novel about what could happen if Northern Ireland, like South Africa, created a “truth commission” to delve into its violent past.

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
By Victor Pelevin
Translated by Andrew Bromfield
Faber £12.99, 304 pages

With his unique mix of postmodernism, science fiction, pop culture and eastern mysticism, Pelevin has emerged as post-Soviet Russia’s most eccentric cult writer. A high-class prostitute is the heroine of his satirical, supernatural sixth novel.

Death at Intervals
By José Saramago
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Harvill Secker £12.99, 208 pages

Known for his fantastical scenarios – in The Stone Raft (1986) the Iberian peninsula breaks off and floats around the Atlantic – Saramago is Portugal’s most influential living writer. His 12th novel translated into English describes a village where death ceases to exist.

MARCH

March is the month of recent prize winners – with a new collection of short stories from 2007’s Man Booker Prize winner, Anne Enright, along with the English-language publication of the novel that took the equivalent Asian prize, Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem.

A Partisan’s Daughter
By Louis de Bernières
Knopf Canada/Harvill Secker
£16.99, 224 pages

Set in 1970s London, this is an unlikely love story – between a middle-aged man and a young Yugoslavian – from the author of the hugely popular Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1993).

A Short Gentleman
By Jon Canter
Jonathan Cape £12.99, 384 pages

Canter wrote scripts for comedians Lenny Henry, Dawn French and Griff Rhys Jones before he turned to fiction. His second novel depicts a pompous, upper class criminal who resists therapy, repentance and change.

Taking Pictures
By Anne Enright
Jonathan Cape £12.99, 240 pages

Enright follows up her Booker Prize win (for The Gathering) with this poignant short story collection about women pondering their feelings for men. The messy web of human relationships is permeated by an unsettling sense of unreality.

Something to Tell You
By Hanif Kureishi
Scribner/Faber
$25.00/£16.99, 352 pages

A love affair between two young British Asians in 1970s London results in a violent act that haunts them into middle age. More colourful, character-packed drama and black humour from the author of The Buddha of Suburbia (1990).

I Play the Drums in a Band Called Okay
By Toby Litt
Hamish Hamilton £12.99, 288 pages

A wickedly ingenious writer, Litt was picked by Granta as one of Britain’s best young novelists in 2003. His follow-up to the mindboggling surrealism of 2007’s Hospital is this mock-rock memoir about a Canadian band on a European tour.

The Omega Force
By Rick Moody
Faber £10.99, 208 pages

American author Moody, who wrote 1994’s The Ice Storm, returns with this trio of novellas on the theme of paranoia.

The Language of Others
By Clare Morrall
Sceptre £16.99, 384 pages

Fiftysomething music teacher Morrall shot to fame in 2003 when her debut novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, made it on to the Booker shortlist. Her third novel concerns a woman with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Wolf Totem
By Jiang Rong
Translated by Howard Goldblatt
Penguin Press HC/Hamish Hamilton
$26.95/£17.99, 496 pages

The winner of November’s inaugural Man Asia Literary Prize, this epic of life on the Mongolian grasslands during the 1966-76 cultural revolution was a bestseller in China.

The Age of Shiva
By Manil Suri
WW Norton/Bloomsbury
$24.95/£14.99, 464 pages

This is the second novel in Mumbai-born maths professor Suri’s panoramic trilogy about a family in the aftermath of Indian independence. The first, The Death of Vishnu (2001), was long-listed for the Booker Prize.

Caravan Thieves
By Gerard Woodward
Chatto & Windus £16.99, 256 pages

Novelist and poet Woodward’s first short story collection takes everyday situations on disturbing tangents. The titular tale concerns violent fantasies unleashed in a mobile home.

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