Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Álvaro Enrigue

In the contested borderlands between Mexico and the United States, a Mexican woman flees into the desert after a devastating raid on her dead husband’s ranch. Meanwhile, a lieutenant colonel of the fledgling Republic, sent in pursuit of cattle rustlers, will soon discover he’s on the trail of a more dramatic abduction.Decades later, with political ambitions on the line, the American and Mexican militaries try to manoeuvre Geronimo, the most legendary of Apache warriors, into surrender. And in our own day, a family travels through the region in search of a truer version of the past. 
 
Now I Surrender is Álvaro Enrigue’s most impassioned novel yet. Part epic, part alt-Western, it weaves past and present, myth and history, into a searing elegy for a way of life that was an incarnation of true liberty – that still sparks in us the thrill of almost unimaginable freedom.

Now I Surrender

Édouard Louis

Édouard’s brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, and that he will earn his father’s love. 
 
But his reality allows him none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him – his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others – condemns him. 
 
At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.

Collapse

Elin Anna Labba

Every summer, Ingá, her mother Rávdná, and her Aunt Ánne travel west to their village on the lake. But the summer Ingá is thirteen, they arrive to find their home and possessions have disappeared under water, the land flooded by a dam built to supply hydropower to a society that has continually stolen from them. 
 
The Home of the Drowned follows these women’s fortunes over forty years – from 1942 to 1982 – as the water their people have lived near for centuries is transformed into a menacing force that threatens all they hold dear. Defying the authorities, Rávdná decides to build a house on the lake to replace what was lost, becoming an unlikely activist. Meanwhile, Ánne’s health is in decline, and a concerned Ingá merely longs to live like everyone else – an impossible wish when the Swedish state is relentlessly drowning her world. 
 
Drawing on her own family’s history of forced relocation and violent colonial dispossession, Elin Anna Labba’s debut novel brings Sámi history to the fore. The Home of the Drowned reveals connections between land, water and people that hauntingly reverberate with the question: what is it that makes a home?

The Home of the Drowned

Karl Ove Knausgaard

The haunting new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Death in the Family. 
 
The year is 1976. Syvert is on his way back to his wife and two sons after a work trip, when his car breaks down outside Arendal and he has to spend the night in the city. It is winter and bitterly cold, and ice lies all the way to the sea, so thick that cars can drive on it. There, almost home, but caught up in memories of his doomed love affair with Asya, a space opens up between the known and the unknown for Syvert. Both in the city, as he wanders along the streets in the dark, and in him. 
 
Arendal is a novel about impossible love and about impossible life. About ships of the dead, about fire and ice, dizzying starry skies and a man trying to find his foothold in the world. 
 
 
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD: 
 
‘Absorbs you utterly’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read’ Brandon Taylor 
‘Addictive’ Daily Telegraph 
‘Brilliant storytelling . . . Epic’ Independent 
‘As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama’ Spectator 
‘Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive’ New York Times 
 
 
Arendal is set in the Morning Star universe.

Arendal

Amil

In a future Korea, the world has been ravaged by dust clouds and the deadly Akanta virus. Rather than live in their nightmarish present, people slip on virtual reality headsets to indulge in simulations of the past. 
 
Eighteen-year-old Soop - stigmatised by her brush with Akanta, which causes VR Rejection – is bullied at school for having to live solely in the real world. Her only solace comes from the K-pop music she listens to on repeat. When Soop comes face to face with her idol, Yichae, whose new music video is being filmed at Soop's high school, she hopes this might be her chance at real connection. 
 
But Yichae has her own troubles. She is one of the few remaining ‘real’ human idols, forced to live up to unattainable standards while being celebrated for her supposed authenticity. 
 
The Forest Called You is a love letter to K-pop, romance and high school politics – a novel about staying true to our passions and loving ourselves and each other in an increasingly artificial world.

The Forest Called You

'[An] almost dangerously immersive reading experience that will completely take over your life. . . by turns bleak, funny and horrifying, but never less than utterly captivating' Martin MacInnes, Booker longlisted author of IN ASCENSIONLondon. 1985. A city rife with possibility and desire. One young man who wants it all. 
 
Kristian Hadeland, newly arrived in the city, seethes with ambition and contempt. His family in Norway never understood him; his fellow photography students bore him. But he knows he and his art are destined for more. 
 
Then he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist. With Hans, the future Kristian yearns for is tangible. All art is possible. Any line can be crossed. 
 
But success comes at a price. And when Kristian does the unthinkable, will he be prepared to pay it? 
 
Electrifying and unflinching, The School of Night is a singular novel about artistic creation and human corruption. It is the story of one terrible man's rise and fall, and a reckoning with the darkest parts of human nature. 
 
PRAISE FOR KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD: 
 
‘Absorbs you utterly’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read’ Brandon Taylor 
‘Addictive’ Daily Telegraph 
‘Brilliant storytelling . . . Epic’ Independent 
‘As accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama’ Spectator 
‘Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive’’ New York Times 
 
 
 
The School of Night is set in the Morning Star universe.

The School of Night

Out of the World is Karl Ove Knausgaard's award-winning debut novel. 
 
 26-year-old Henrik Vankel works as a teacher in northern Norway. At the school, he becomes infatuated with Miriam. But she is a student in his class. 
 
 Out of the World was the first ever debut novel to win the prestigious Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature.

Out of the World

Kim Jee Hye

Welcome to Soyangri Book Kitchen 
 
In a peaceful village in the countryside, far from the bustling heart of Seoul, lies a book lovers’ paradise. With its wafts of delicious food and book-filled shelves, Soyangri Book Kitchen is dotingly managed by its plucky proprietor Yoojin. Her aim? To create a sanctuary for weary souls like herself. 
 
But the book kitchen is more than just a place to eat or read – it’s a place which offers its guests a true escape, not just inside the pages of its many books, but in the warm embrace of an overnight bookstay. 
 
Over the course of a year, seven individuals, all at a crossroads in their lives, find their way to Yoojin’s book kitchen. Among them are Da-in, a singer grappling with an identity crisis, Sohee, a promising lawyer confronted with a daunting medical diagnosis, and Soohyuk, a young musical director whose dreams have been stifled by failure. 
 
As they arrive in Soyangri, each of them will find their life subtly transformed by the magic of its books and the kindness of its people.

Soyangri Book Kitchen

Nagi Shimeno

After a long and happy life with a loving human family, tabby cat Fuuta has passed into the afterlife. But he is not as far from his owner Michiru as it seems. Sometimes the divide between the lands of the living and the dead can be traversed. 
 
Eager to see Michiru again, Fuuta interviews for a position at Café Pont, which sits in the liminal space between the two worlds. The café is known for its unique service: its living customers can request meetings with the person they'd most like to see again, through the specially selected spirits of messenger cats. 
 
Fuuta must investigate and deliver his messages without unnerving the living, or worse, upsetting the balance of the universe itself. It is a weighty task for a tabby cat, but Fuuta rises to the challenge. After all, the job offers a special reward: he will get to see Michiru again. And he'll do anything to reunite with his family.

Messenger Cat Café

Haruki Murakami

‘What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real.’ A lavishly illustrated edition of Murakami’s classic story. 
 
Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs. A skinny little man no more than five foot three, Katagiri was overwhelmed by the frog's imposing bulk. 
‘Call me “Frog,”’ said the frog in a clear, strong voice. 
Katagiri stood rooted in the doorway, unable to speak. 
‘Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. Just come and close the door. Please.’ 
Briefcase in his right hand, grocery bag with fresh vegetables and canned salmon cradled in his left arm, Katagiri didn't dare move. 
‘Please, Mr. Katagiri, hurry and close the door, and take off your shoes.’ 
 
Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this special edition of Murakami’s celebrated short story sees the bewildered Katagiri find meaning in his humdrum life through joining forces with Frog in an effort to save Tokyo from an existential threat. 
 
‘No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades’ Financial Times 
 
‘A master storyteller’ Sunday Times

Showing results for: ‘Ajay Chowdhury’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter