Kathryn Harrison’s and Dani Shapiro’s new autobiographical books are reminders of a seemingly modern job title: serial memoirist. Time and time again, self-chroniclers like them prove that you can’t spell “memoir” without “me.”
The author, most recently, of the memoir “Inheritance” turns to family and friends for reading suggestions: “My 19-year-old son is a voracious reader and constantly recommends books to me.”
“My Sister, the Serial Killer,” by the Nigerian novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite, follows the fortunes of two women in Lagos, a city that strives to suffocate women.
In Sophie Mackintosh’s debut novel, “The Water Cure,” Lia, Grace and Sky — living off the grid with their abusive parents — have been raised to fear men.
Four new literary works revisit African history, refiguring age-old maledictions as a birthright, a special form of insight, a superpower, a redemption. Julian Lucas explains.