Books by Aria Aber
“It perfectly captured this time in a woman’s life, or this woman’s life. She’s the daughter of an Afghan refugee in Berlin, and she’s ashamed of it. Anyone that has had shame in their lives, especially shame related to your identity, will really identify with this book. There’s a section in it where she really fancies this guy, a very unsuitable guy, and—as we all do—she is trying to be cool, trying to say the right thing, to sit right, eat right, smoke right. It has really unusual sentence structures—the way they start. It’s quite extraordinary, really. So well done.” Read more...
The Best Novels: The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Kit de Waal, Novelist
Interviews where books by Aria Aber were recommended
The Best Novels: The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, recommended by Kit de Waal
The 2025 shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction features a family saga about formerly rich Iranian refugees, a surprisingly funny tale of ISIS brides and a “weird” midlife crisis adventure in suburban California. We asked the bestselling novelist—chair of this year’s judging panel—to talk us through the six finalists.
Notable Novels of Spring 2025, recommended by Cal Flyn
Our seasonal round-up of notable new releases in fiction: Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn offers an overview of the spring 2025 novels you should have on your literary radar: new work from Nobel laureates, a buzzy new debut set in Berlin, and a conceptually thrilling Scandinavian sci-fi septology.
