Lara Vergnaud

A young professor grapples with homophobia in Muslim Senegal in this searching, heart-wrenching novel from the National Book Award-longlisted author of The Most Secret Memory of Men. A viral video makes the rounds in Dakar, showing an incensed crowd that gathers to dig up a grave and drag the corpse from holy ground. When Nd n , a French literature teacher, watches it, he's surprisingly affected. Who was this man, and what could he have done to deserve such a fate? The answer soon becomes clear: he was a "g or-jig en," one of the so-called "men-women," the shameful label given to homosexuals, cross-dressers, or any man who lives outside the accepted norm. Haunted by the video, Nd n sets out to learn more. With the help of a friend who works in night life, he explores a hidden side of Dakar, away from the rigid Islam of his family and university. Although he feels a certain disgust for homosexuality, he's moved by the suffering and resilience of the people he meets. But the further he goes, the more he doubts his own identity, threatening to become an object of suspicion and scorn himself. A powerful, nuanced portrait of queerness in a conservative society, Pure Men asks the fundamental question of how to find the courage to be true to yourself, whatever the cost.

This searing historical fiction immerses us in the brutal early days of the 19th-century French colonization of Algeria. The highly anticipated English-language debut of a prize-winning author who tackles the taboo of France's colonial past. In search of a prosperous life, S raphine and her family brave the dangerous journey to France's newly conquered Algerian territory, along with 500 likeminded citizens. But the realities of the colony soon give the lie to the French government's promises: inadequate shelter, hostile weather, sickness, and a native population whose anger and desperation threaten to boil over into violence. As the settlers gradually, painfully establish a community and a church in this foreign land, the French army wreaks devastation on the Algerian people and their villages. Through the eyes of a soldier--constantly reminded by his captain, "You're no angels "--we witness the shocking cruelty with which they attempt to quell resistance. With chiseled, haunting prose reminiscent of Faulkner, Mathieu Belezi condenses years of historical research into a powerfully human account. Far from the pioneer dream sold by Western powers, Attacking Earth and Sun vividly exposes the hell that was colonization.

In this captivating Faulknerian tale of love, masculinity, and vengeance, tensions boil over in a rural mountain community whose able-bodied men have left to fight in World War I. In the heart of Cantal, in the heat of the summer of 1914, the men resigned themselves to going off to fight, far away. Joseph, just 15 years old, must take care of the family farm with his mother, his grandmother, and Leonard, an old neighbor who has become his friend. On the property next door, Valette, kept away from the war due to an atrophied hand, dwells on his grudges and his rage. And now he has to take in his brother's wife and daughter, who have sought refuge with him. The arrival of the two women will end up upsetting a hitherto immutable order and awakening buried passions.

First published after the author's death in 2008, this provocative novel charts the late-in-life sexual awakening of a retired army officer who embarks on a dangerous affair with a male servant. Captain Ni'mat, a reservist from the Egyptian army defeated by the Israelis in 1967, finds himself aging and idle, spending his days at a luxurious private club in Cairo with former comrades. One night, Captain Ni'mat has an exquisite, chilling dream: he sees pure beauty in the form of his Nubian valet. Awakened by these searing images, he slips into the cabin where the young man sleeps. The vision of his naked body so deeply disturbs Captain Ni'mat that his monotonous existence is suddenly turned upside down. Unbeknownst to his wife, he comes to know physical love with his valet. In a country where religious fundamentalism grows increasingly prevalent every day, this forbidden passion will lead him to the height of happiness, at least for a time.

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint. Elected bishop of Milan by popular acclaim in 374, Ambrose went on to become one of the four original Doctors of the Church. There is much more to this book, however, than the compelling story of the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine in the fourth century. Trace and Aura investigates how a crucial figure from the past can return in different guises over and over again, in a city that he inspired and shaped through his beliefs and political convictions. His recurring lives actually span more than ten centuries, from the fourth to the fourteenth. In the process of following Ambrose's various reincarnations, Patrick Boucheron draws compelling connections between religion, government, tyranny, the Italian commune, Milan's yearning for autonomy, and many other aspects of this fascinating relationship between a city and its spiritual mentor who strangely seems to resist being manipulated by the needs and ambitions of those in power.

Drawn from the author's experiences growing up in a Paris banlieue, a powerful, lyric debut that explores the diverse, often conflicting facets of her identity--French, Algerian, Muslim, lesbian. The youngest daughter of Algerian immigrants, Fatima Daas is raised in a home where love and sexuality are considered taboo, and signs of affection avoided. Living in the majority-Muslim suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, she often spends more than three hours a day on public transportation to and from the city, where she feels like a tourist observing Parisian manners. She goes from unstable student to maladjusted adult, doing four years of therapy--her longest relationship. But as she gains distance from her family and comes into her own, she grapples more directly with her attraction to women and how it fits with her religion, which she continues to practice. When Nina comes into her life, she doesn't know exactly what she needs but feels that something crucial has been missing. This extraordinary first novel, anchored and buoyed by the refrain "My name is Fatima," is a vital portrait of a young woman finding herself in a modern world full of contradictions. Daas's journey to living her sexuality in spite of expectations about who she should be offers a powerful perspective on the queer experience.