Every year, we interview the judges of the Walter Scott Prize to hear about the latest historical novels we should be reading, but with so much new historical fiction being published every week, we like to keep a look out for other books that look interesting. We also keep track of new books by authors who have done an interview with us or whose books have been frequently recommended on Five Books. If you're interested in a particular era, we have a special section devoted to the very popular genre of World War II historical fiction as well as an interview on the best medieval historical fiction, recommended by Professor Marion Turner, a medieval literature expert at the University of Oxford. Tudor-era historical fiction is recommended by British historian Alison Weir.
Beyond the Door of No Return
by David Diop
Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop is a historical novel that opens in France, but is set mainly in 18th-century Senegal, at the height of the slave trade. It's the story of a French botanist, Michel Adanson, and what befell him after going to the island of Saint-Louis in Senegal. As he writes to his daughter, "Things did not go the way I planned. I made the voyage to Senegal to discover plants, and instead I encountered people."
Diop won the International Booker Prize in 2021 for his work of historical fiction set in World War I, At Night All Blood Is Black.
“Percival Everett…will return with James, a reworking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn narrated by Jim, the escaped slave with whom Finn travels on a raft. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly noted that in this version, Jim is ‘a Black man whoâs mastered the art of minstrelsy to get what he needs from gullible white people.'” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
The Women
by Kristin Hannah
The Women by Kristin Hannah hit the bestseller lists on publication in February 2024 in the United States. It's set in the 1960s, and tells the story of a 20-year-old American woman who follows her brother to war in Vietnam. It shines a light on a topic not often focused on: the American women who served in Vietnam. In her author's note, Hannah writes that the book "has been a true labour of love, years in the making...It has taken me decades to circle back to the Vietnam War era." At the back of the book, there's a list of memoirs by nurses who went to Vietnam that Hannah read for her research. This novel is just under 500 pages, but as you would expect from an author who has sold some 25 million copies of her books, it's very accessible.
For a novel about the Vietnam War told from another neglected point of view, that of the North Vietnamese, we recommend The Sorrow of War (1991) by Bao Ninh.
Burma Sahib
by Paul Theroux
Travel writer Paul Theroux imagines the life of British writer George Orwell, during the period he spent as a colonial policeman in Burma (now Myanmar) in the 1920s. Orwell wrote about this period in his novel, Burmese Days, and some episodes from his essays appear in the bookâthough Theroux goes well beyond those to create a work of fiction. The book opens on the ship on the way out to Rangoon, with a woman spying on Orwell through a pair of binoculars as the Suez Canal recedes in the background. As a 19-year-old wearing an Eton tie, she thinks Orwell might make a good prospect for her daughter.
The Silver Bone
by Andrey Kurkov
Longlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize
The Silver Bone is by Andrey Kurkov, one of Ukraine's best-known writers. It's a historical novel set in Kyiv in 1919, and (apparently) the first in a series of detective novels. This was a period of fighting between various factionsâand is also the setting for The White Guard (1915) by Mikhail Bulgakov. Kurkov apparently took inspiration "from the real-life archives of crime enforcement agencies in Kyiv"âthough there's also comedy and magical realism.
“One of the biggest books of the season…is Zadie Smith’s new novel, The Fraud. It’s a work of historical fictionâher firstâset in Victorian England, and exploring art-that-imitates-life, abolitionism, and a scandalous case of identity theft that gripped the nation. It was an instant New York Times bestseller and has garnered some brilliant reviews in the three weeks it has been out so far. (The Observer said it was ‘almost flawless… her funniest novel yet.’)” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
The House of Doors
by Tan Twan Eng
â Longlisted for the 2023 Booker PrizeÂ
The House of Doors is another beautiful historical novel by Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng. Set in Penang, it's told through the eyes of two people: Lesley Hamlyn, a Malaysian-born English woman married to a lawyer and the British novelist W. Somerset Maugham (Willie). It's a wonderful fusion of fact and fiction, featuring also Sun Yat-senâthe Chinese revolutionary who served as the first president of the Republic of China. Sun Wen, as he liked to be called, spent time in Penang in 1910.
The Black Crescent
by Jane Johnson
The Black Crescent by British novelist Jane Johnson is a lovely work of historical fiction that introduces you to the world of 1950s Morocco, at the time of the country's struggle for independence from France. The main character, Hamou Badi, is from a mountain village but ends up becoming a policeman and working in Casablanca. The author, Jane Johnson, has set a number of her novels in Morocco where she met her husband, Abdel Bakrim, and now lives for half the year (see below for the story of how that happened!). As well as being a good story, the book is a nice way of learning about Morocco's recent history alongside her.
“Alice Winn’s In Memoriamâa love story set during the tumult of the First World Warâcame roaring out of the starting gates and straight into the bestseller lists. In it, two heartsick schoolboys are forced to confront their feelings for one another amid the horror of war. It’s been endorsed by such literary grandees as Maggie O’Farrell and Garth Greenwell; The New York Times has also described it as both ‘devastating’ and ‘tender'” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
M: Son of the Century
by Antonio Scurati
đ Winner of the 2022 European Book Prize
Antonio Scurati's novel about the rise of Fascism in Italy, told from the point of view of Benito Mussolini. There are also excerpts from newspapers and reports. The first in a trilogy, this 700+ page book includes the March on Rome as well as the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, ending in 1925.
Finger Bone
by Hiroki Takahashi & Takami Nieda (translator)
đ Winner 2014 Shincho Prize for New Writers
Finger Bone was the debut novel of award-winning Japanese writer Hiroki Takahashi, first published in English in 2023. The title alone conveys a lot of its horror: rather than gravestones, when Japanese soldiers died in World War II, one finger would be chopped off, stripped of its flesh and sent home to the family. The novel is set in Papua Guinea in 1942, and details the experience of a young, wounded soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army. It's a short, very sad book.
The Marriage Portrait: A Novel
by Maggie O'Farrell & narrated by Genevieve Gaunt
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction
“I liked what Claire Allfree had to say about it in The Times: âSo headily perfumed is her prose it works on the reader almost like a drug.â Sound good? Then I suspect this historical romance (of a kind) will work for you.” Cal Flyn in Notable Novels of Fall 2022
“O’Farrell’s novel is richly atmospheric and deeply researched, although she has altered some historical details for narrative effect. It met with a somewhat mixed critical reception on publication but has found a wide and largely appreciative fan base. If you enjoy lushly descriptive historical fiction, this will be the book for you.” Read more...
The 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
I Am Not Your Eve
by Devika Ponnambalam
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
Devika Ponnambalam's historical novel presents the story of Teha'amana, the child-bride and muse of the French artist Paul Gauguin, and the girl who features in his most famous work, 'ManaĂČ tupapaĂș' ('Spirit of the Dead Watching'). I Am Not Your Eve is written primarily from Teha'amana's perspective, but includes several other voices, creating the clash of cultures between the French colonists, Christian missionaries and the indigenous peoples of Polynesia. While presenting their 2023 historical fiction shortlist, the Walter Scott Prize judges said it was "a complex novel"Â that raised "uncomfortable issues of morality." It demands a lot of the reader, they added, but is "deeply rewarding."
Ancestry: A Novel
by Simon Mawer
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
Mawer won the 2016 Walter Scott Prize for his novel Tightropeâthe story of a female secret agent for the British during World War II. He returns to the shortlist with a new historical novel that delves into the stories from the author's own family tree. As the 2023 Walter Scott Prize judges observed: "he refuses to choose between fiction and fact," melding his archival research with imagined elements that takes us from poverty-stricken London to the Crimean War. It's an "ambitious novel" and a "memorable family odyssey that takes the reader into a fictional realm."
The Sun Walks Down
by Fiona McFarlane
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
In The Sun Walks Down, a historical novel set in 1883 Australia, the disappearance of a six-year-old boy during a duststorm electrifies an outback community of farmers, artists, servants, cameleers and Aboriginal peoples, and forces a broader reckoning in this uneasy colonial society. This is a slowburn mystery of literary merit, with a complex, multi-layered plot and intense atmospheric effect. The 2023 Walter Scott Prize judges described it as a "rich and empathetic novel" which offered the reader the keys to understanding Australia, summoning its landscapeâ"at once beautiful and alien"âand its "burning sun" directly onto the page.
The Chosen
by Elizabeth Lowry
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
In The Chosen, Elizabeth Lowry examinesâby way of historical fiction, drawn from factâthe troubled marriage of Thomas Hardy and his wife Emma. After Emma's death in 1912, Hardy read her diaries recording their years together; their contents, the story they told about their dissolving partnership, disturbed him so much that he burned them. "Combining meticulous research with a poetâs imagination, Lowry gives voice to both Hardy and to his downtrodden wife," said the judges of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize. "The result is an extraordinary work, full of tenderness and unexpected humour. Itâs a portrait of a marriage gone wrong and an investigation into the grammar of grief. Along the way, we consider the parasitic relationship art can have with life, and the transcendent power of love."
Act of Oblivion
by Robert Harris
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
New historical novels by British writer Robert Harris are always worth looking out for so don't let the blitz of marketing surrounding his latest, Act of Oblivion, put you off. It's set at an interesting point in English history: the immediate aftermath of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Through the reflections of one of the main characters, we see the events leading up to the execution of Charles I more than a decade previously, in 1649, as well as the battles of the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army. Puritan America is also an important part of the setting. If you're interested in history and don't know the details of this period, it's an interesting book, not least because you can't help but reflect on what it takes to tip a country into civil war.
The Geometer Lobachevsky
by Adrian Duncan
â Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
The Irish writer, artist and former structural engineer Adrian Duncan draws from his unusual blend of expertise in his novelsâwhich have previously featured a Berlin construction site and a retired bridge engineer. The Geometer Lobachevsky is about a Soviet mathematician who has been working to survey peatbogs for mechanised harvesting in 1950s Ireland. But to describe it in such terms "is akin to relegating Leonardoâs Last Supper to thirteen men having dinner," protest the judges of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. "Like the bog Lobachevsky is surveying, the unassuming surface conceals âa subterranean ocean on a gusty dayâ." It's a "quiet gem" that brings a great, fitting precision to the inner life and melancholy predicament of our protagonist, as he attempts to evade a summons to return to the USSR.
These Days
by Lucy Caldwell
đ Winner of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction
Lucy Caldwell's fifth novel is set during the Belfast Blitz, a series of four devastating major air raids on the Northern Irish city in 1941. It's "an under-told chapter in the fiction of my city," as Caldwell reflected; researching the book felt like "a strange, intense sort of solace" during the early days of the Covid crisis. The novel focuses on two sisters, Audrey and Emma, whose comfortable middle-class existence is shattered during the attacks. While announcing the shortlist for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, the judges noted that "the juxtaposition of the horrific and mundane and the authenticity of detail makes this novel an exceptional study of the terrors and consequences of war."
The World and All That It Holds
by Aleksandar Hemon
đ Winner of the 2023 Grand Prix de LittĂ©rature AmĂ©ricaine
The World and All That It Holds is a new historical novel by Bosnia-born novelist Aleksandar Hemon, who we interviewed more than a decade ago on the cheery topic of 'Man's Inhumanity To Man'. This novel is set at the outbreak of World War I and ranges from Sarajevo (where the main protagonist witnesses the killing of Archduke Ferdinand and Sophie, his wife) to Shanghai.
The Blunder
by Mutt-Lon
The Blunder by Mutt-Lon, the pen name of Nsegbe Daniel Alain, is a historical novel set in early 20th century Cameroon, when the country was split between French and English colonial administrations. It's based on the true story of Dr. EugÚne Jamot, a French military doctor whose head still graces a monument outside the Ministry of Public Health in Yaoundé, the capital, but whose legacy is decidedly mixed. The book is a revealing, refreshing and entertaining read, written in French and translated into English by Amy Reid.
The Best Historical Fiction: The 2023 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, recommended by Cal Flyn
Every year, the judges for the Walter Scott Prize highlight the best new historical fiction. In 2023, the shortlisted books include a slow-burn mystery set in colonial Australia and a thrilling new novel from the author of Fatherland. Cal Flyn, our deputy editor, takes us through the seven books that are set 60+ years in the past and yet speak to the present.