The beginning of 2006 sees a rush of new fiction worth reading from writers both old and new.
One of the highlights is Fallen (St Martin's Press/Canongate $23.95/£10.99), the second novel by US writer David Maine, which hits the UK in March (it's already available in America). As in his debut, The Flood, which reinvented Noah and his ark, Maine constructs a modern novel around Old Testament narrative - this time retelling the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden.
Taking a more secular view of things, Snatches (Jonathan Cape £11.99, January) by Martin Rowson opens with a description of the conception of humanity as two ape-like creatures mating in an African jungle millions of years ago. The first prose from political cartoonist Rowson - whose work appears in numerous newspapers - Snatches is a series of acerbic, funny vignettes that romp through eons of human frailty and wrong-doing and features a cast of historical characters such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Margaret Thatcher.
Eminent American authors feature prominently this new year, including E.L. Doctorow, whose The March (Random House/Time Warner $25.95/£11.99, available in the US/in UK by January) deconstructs Hollywood-perpetuated myths about the patriotism and grandeur of the American civil war. Following General Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas, the author portrays the grim horror and moral ambiguity of events to create a highly unjingoistic American epic.
Another New Yorker, Rick Moody, has written The Diviners (Little, Brown/Faber & Faber $25.95/£12.99, available in the US/in UK by January). A much lighter tale than his most famous work - 1994's The Ice Storm - it lampoons the excesses of the entertainment world with a plot focusing on the making of a TV mini-series.
Californian writer T.C. Boyle's Tooth and Claw (Viking Adult/Bloomsbury $25.95/£10.99, available in the US/in UK by January) is a collection of characteristically dark and surreal short stories featuring unforgettable eccentrics including: a Shetland sheep farmer whose one true love is blown out to sea by freak winds; a woman in suburban Connecticut who lives wild with stray dogs; and a naive underachiever who is tricked into keeping an African wildcat in his flat.
Short story collections abound, with Margaret Atwood's The Tent coming out in January in the US and March in the UK (Nan A. Talese/Bloomsbury $18/£12.99). Packed full of her wit and imaginative flair, these shorter-than-shortstories include a retelling of the Greek myth of Queen Procne and her sister Philomela; Horatio's real opinion of Hamlet; and a pastiche on Chicken Licken and his worries about the sky falling down.
Valerie Martin, who won the Orange Prize for fiction in 2003 for Property, is bringing out The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories (Vintage/Weidenfeld & Nicolson $13/£14.99, publishing May in US/March in UK). These six stories explore the relationship between an artist and his or her art, culminating in a tale of a printmaker who goes so far into the magical world of her imagination that she cannot find her way back.
Martin is one of three Orange Prize winners soon to publish new work. Yorkshire-born Helen Dunmore - who won the first Orange Prize in 1995 with A Spell of Winter - is bringing out House of Orphans at the end of February in the UK (Fig Tree, £17.99). Set in Russian-ruled Finland at the start of the 20th century, it explores the relationship between an orphaned girl and a widowed doctor.
The Secret River (Canongate $24/£12.99, May/February) is Australian writer Kate Grenville's first novel since she won the Orange Prize with The Idea of Perfection in 2001. Based on her own family history, it tells the exhilarating story of her ancestor William Thornhill, a petty criminal in 19th century London exiled to New South Wales.
Another prize-winning Australian, D.B.C. Pierre - who won the 2003 Booker Prize with Vernon God Little - is offering Ludmila'sBroken English (W. W. Norton/Faber & Faber $13/£12.99, May/March), the tale of a Russian woman forced by poverty to go on a website to attract a western husband. It is a wildly improbable but hugely enjoyable romp and also features a pair of recently separated conjoined twins, setting out on their sexual adventuring.
Natural Flights of the HumanMind (Sceptre £12.99, January) is the second novel from British writer and Booker nominee Clare Morrall - her first, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was unexpectedly shortlisted for the 2003 prize. It concerns Peter Straker, a recluse hiding in a disused lighthouse in Devon, and his relationship with his new female neighbour.
The Successor (Arcade/Canongate $24/£9.99, available in the US/in UK by January) is the latest work from Albanian writer Ismail Kadaré, whowon 2005's inaugural Man Booker International Prize. A stunning political novel, it is based on real-life events surrounding the sudden death of Mehmet Shehu, the man selected to succeed hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Kadaré blends his country's contemporary history with Balkan folklore to create a story at once universal and local.
Novels from two of Latin American's greatest living writers are soon to be published in English. Argentine writer Tomás Eloy Martínez's The Tango Singer (Bloomsbury $23.95/£12.99, May/January) concerns the search for the elusive and mysterious Julio Martel - the singer of the title - and paints an evocative picture of modern Buenos Aires. A futuristic novel set in the Mexico of 2020, The Eagle's Throne (Random House/Bloomsbury $26.95/£12.99, May/February) by Carlos Fuentes tells of a Machiavellian power struggle to replace an outgoing president.
Not a foreign writer, but an English one abroad, Tim Parks - who lives in Milan where he teaches at the university - is bringing out Cleaver - A Novel (Harvill Secker £16.99, February). Both deeply serious and hilariously funny, it tells the story of a London journalist's escape from the technological complexity of modern life to the mountains of the southern Tyrol.
Better known for his sciencefiction, such as his 1992 debutHot-head, Simon Ings' ambitiously genre-defying The Weight of Numbers (Atlantic Books £12.99, March) is a virtuoso display of imaginative plotting. It examines the link between fate and maths and moves fluidly between significant historical moments over the past 70 years in London, Mozambique, Cuba, Florida and on the moon.
Another writer more famous for doing something else is D.J. Taylor, the biographer of writers George Orwell and William Thackeray. He has put his research skills to fine use with his latest novel, Kept: A Victorian Mystery (Chatto & Windus £16.99, February) - a murder mystery set in a lavishly detailed Victorian Britain.
Irish writer Liam Browne's The Emigrant's Farewell (Bloomsbury £12.99, February), a tale of grief and its aftermath, is one of a couple of accomplished debuts. The other is The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Russian-American novelist Olga Grushin (Putnam Adult/Viking Books $24.95/£14.99, January/February) - a tale of a Soviet artist's abandonment of his principles to become a high-ranking communist party official.
The Vengeance of Rome by Michael Moorcock (Jonathan Cape £17.99, February/January) is the last novel in a quartet featuring cocaine-snorting, bisexual, Jewish anti-Semite "Pyat". It's been 13 years since Jerusalem Commands, the third of the series, but Moorcock doesn't disappoint with an outrageous climax, which includes Pyat working for Mussolini and performing sexual favours for Hitler.
