Non-fiction

Literature in Peril

Tzvetan Todorov

In his new bestselling essay, the philosopher and literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov addresses the worrying state of contemporary literature. Todorov argues that the crux of this problem lies in an app…


Talk to the Snail

Stephen Clarke

Have you ever walked into a half-empty restaurant in France only to be told that it’s ‘complet’? Attempted to say ‘merci beaucoup’ and accidentally complimented someone on their cute backside? Been ta…


Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The daughter of a political opponent of the Somali dictatorship, Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up surrounded by her family in exile. Her traditional upbringing continued from Somalia to Saudi Arabia and then t…


Stolen Voices

Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger

In 1992 Zlata Filipovic found herself caught in the siege of Sarajevo. The diary that she had begun as a carefree twelve year old became a war diary – a record of the devastation that was unfolding ar…


The Road of Lost Innocence

Somaly Mam

Somaly Mam’s life story is an unforgettable and inspiring story of triumph over unthinkable adversity. Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence recounts the experienc…


A Life Less Ordinary

Baby Halder

Written on a notepad in moments snatched between her domestic duties, Baby Halder’s memoir recounts the hardships and struggles of her life as a poor woman in India; her mother walked out when she was…


The Courage to Leave

Diaryatou Bah

Diaryatou was born in 1985 in Guinea. One of 32 children (her father had four wives), at the age of two she was sent to live with her grandparents in a little village “on the edge of the world,” where…


The Apostles of Beauty

Tzvetan Todorov

Although they may sound strange today, Dostoevsky’s famous words were once taken at face value. In the wake of 19th century Romanticism, several generations of writers did believe that through their l…


In the Name of Honour

Mukhtar Mai

For the first time, Mukhtar Mai recounts her ordeal in this moving memoir. A story of extreme suffering and humiliation, it is also one of immense courage and faith. Mukhtar Mai is thirty five years o…


In Defence of the Enlightenment

Tzvetan Todorov

Two and a half centuries ago, a generation of men grew up with the exhilarating belief that the world could be explored and explained with man-created tools and adventurous minds over which no God had…