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Theme

Identity

Reviews of novels about identity, alienation and self-formation — fiction tracing who we become under pressure and what that process destroys.

Reviews filed under this theme.

Tony Tulathimutte

Rejection

Grievance organises perception, where desire distorts into self-narration and isolation hardens into structure.

Natasha Brown

Universality

Natasha Brown’s second novel analyses debates readers already know. The insight is recognisable from the first pages.

R. F. Kuang

Yellowface

In Yellowface, R. F. Kuang turns plagiarism, publishing ambition and online outrage into propulsion. The novel moves quickly, even as its satire reduces people to instruments.