Chen, Karissa. Homeseeking. Putnam. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9780593712993. 512p. $30. LITERARY FICTION

Chen, editor in chief of Hyphen magazine and former senior fiction editor at The Rumpus, debuts with a novel she spent a decade writing. As it explores the Chinese diaspora and the lives of two lovers, the narrative spans 60 years and moves between Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Los Angeles.

Desai, Anita. Rosarita. Scribner. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781668082430. 112p. $22. LITERARY FICTION

Desai, a three-time Booker Prize shortlistee and one of India’s most important writers, offers a new novel. Bonita, who has left India to study in Mexico, unexpectedly encounters her mother’s mysterious past through the figure of a stranger she calls the Trickster.

Dorabji, Tara. Call Her Freedom. S&S. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781668051658. 320p. $28.99. LITERARY FICTION

Dorabji won Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us grand prize for this novel, her debut. The family saga, set in the Himalayas between the late 1960s and 2022, tells the story of mother and daughter, generational secrets, sacrifice, and dreams against a backdrop of colonialization and militarization.

Ghenim, Amira. A Calamity of Noble Houses. tr. from Arabic by Miled Faiza & Karen McNeil. Europa. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9798889660507. 432p. $28. LITERARY FICTION

Ghenim’s first novel to be translated into English (a finalist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction) explores Tunisia’s sociopolitical history from the 1930s to the present day, as 11 voices each tell their version of one momentous evening in 1935 whose effects reverberated across two families.

Han Kang. We Do Not Part. tr. from Korean by e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris. Hogarth. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9780593595459. 272p. $28. LITERARY FICTION

Han won the International Booker Prize for The Vegetarian and the Prix Medicis Étranger for this newest when it was published in France last year. It is a story of friendship, Korean history, the Jeju massacre, and traumatic memory.

Kim Jiyun. Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat. tr. from Korean by Shanna Tan. Pegasus. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781639368037. 304p. $25.95. LITERARY FICTION

Kim’s debut, a bestseller in Korea, is a literary healing fiction title about a laundromat in Seoul that is a haven for its patrons. When a notebook is left behind amid the laundry, customers begin to write diary entries in it and eventually join forces to solve a mystery and make the world a better place.

Krouse, Erika. Save Me, Stranger: Stories. Flatiron. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781250240330. 224p. $26.99. LITERARY FICTION

Krouse, who won the Edgar Award for her memoir Tell Me Everything, turns to short stories with this collection, featuring a haunted bed-and-breakfast in the Rockies and an ice-cream truck driven by a teenage runaway.

Shamieh, Betty. Too Soon. Avid Reader. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781668046548. 320p. $28.99. LITERARY FICTION

Shamieh, founding artistic director of the Semitic Root and playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, debuts with a multigenerational novel about a family of Palestinian American women between 1948 and 2012, as they struggle to forge their own lives and find love on their terms.

Upadhyay, Samrat. Darkmotherland. Soho. Jan. 2025. ISBN 9781641294720. 768p. $32. LITERARY FICTION

Whiting Award winner Upadhyay, whose last novel, The City Son, came out in 2014, returns with a work of epic length, set in a dystopian reimagined version of Nepal and featuring two intertwining storylines about politics, interpersonal relationships, and power.