Marta’s Forthcoming Highlights for 2021

We can’t plan for much right now, but one thing we can say: What a great year we have ahead, as far as new books go! This 2021 I’m equally excited by new voices as I am about some of my favourite writers coming back with new material. 

Twitter’s poet laureate, and author of the phenomenal memoir Priestdaddy‘s debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, is as funny, original and affecting as her fans will hope. Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts is equally zeitgeisty – having admired her criticism for a long time, I am thrilled she is taking on the complexities of the internet, truth and identity via fiction: we are in good hands. 

Aftershocks is a stunning work of creative non-fiction looking at language, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves. Bestiary and Of Women and Salt, two debut novels about inheritance, intergenerational trauma and displacement via the lives of several generations of women, are both stay-up-all-night absorbing and astonishingly beautiful. 

Fans of Homegoing won’t be disappointed by Yaa Gyasi’s second act, the stunning Transcendent Kingdom – both it and Meng Jin’s Little Gods combine science and family histories into simply flawless novels. 

Finally, poet Wanda Coleman was an absolute force; her work has been rightly called hilarious, hateful and transcendent. Penguin’s release of Wicked Enchantment, her first UK publication, should – and will – be cause for celebration!