LITERATURE
Audition KATIE KITAMURA
Our main character is a professional actor, currently rehearsing her newest role. We join her as she meets the young and enigmatic Xavier for lunch in New York, who may or may not be her son. However, saying much more about this tense and unpredictable book risks revealing the twists and turns expertly presented by Kitamura’s well-crafted prose. This is a novel of two distinct halves, each offering a different take on its events. However, rather than struggling to establish which is the ‘real’ story, the best way through is to accept that truth is sometimes fiction, and to strap in and enjoy the ensuing rollercoaster ride. As the title suggests, the book plays with ideas of performance both on and off the stage, exploring the impact of the stories we tell about our choices and the details we revealingly leave out. Psychologically searching and packed with detail, this character-driven novel is an intense and memorable experience, not to be missed.
UNCERTAIN TRUTHS Kitamura offers different takes on the same events but doesn’t define which is ‘real’
Catch up on some of the many worthy prizewinners of the past... BOOKER BRILLIANCE
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA
Moon Tiger PENELOPE LIVELY
Milkman ANNA BURNS
At the end of her life, 76-year-old historian Claudia decides to write a history of the world, but ends up telling her own life story – jumping through time, memories and between viewpoints. Small but spellbinding, it was a Golden Booker nominee, one of the best of the prize’s first 50 years.
Written wholly in vernacular with few paragraph breaks, this experimental novel is better read aloud. It follows a nameless 18-year-old girl through the divided society of 70s Northern Ireland, as she tries to throw off the attentions of an older, more powerful man known as ‘the milkman’.
A surreal, satirical adventure through Sri Lanka’s underworld. Photographer Maali Almeida has woken up dead, and his ghost has seven nights to lead his friends to hidden photos that, he hopes, will change Sri Lanka’s destiny. Once read, never forgotten.
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK NOVEMBER 2025 25
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