Rare ability … Chetna Maroo. Photograph: Graeme Jackson

BOOK OF THE DAY

Review

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo review – a tender debut

The tensions of family life are vividly conveyed in this novel of growing pains, grief and squash

Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Caleb Klaces

Wednesday 26 April 2026

C

hetna Maroo’s debut novel begins a few days after 11-year-old Gopi’s mother’s funeral, which leaves Gopi and her two older sisters in the care of their father. Gopi practises squash every day at Western Lane, a sports centre just outside London. The book ends with her playing the final of the Durham and Cleveland squash tournament. The arc is a Hollywood staple: tragedy, sporting trial, potential triumph. The tension is heightened by squash-obsessed, emotionally uncommunicative Pa; fearful Aunt Ranjan is the obstacle that stands in Gopi’s way. There is a love interest, Ged, whose mother intervenes at just the right moment for the plot (and the wrong moment for Gopi).

Marlon James Makes Jamaica Proud With His Man Booker Prize for Fiction Win

Jamaican novelist Marlon James at the Calabash Literary Festival in 2007. Photo by Georgia Popplewell, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.

Marlon James Makes Jamaica Proud With His Man Booker Prize for Fiction Win

BIOGRAPHY

Marlon James enorgullece a Jamaica al ganar el premio Man Booker de ficción (De otros mundos)

Written byJanine Mendes-Franco

Marlon James enorgullece a Jamaica al ganar el premio Man Booker de ficción (De otros mundos)

Posted 14 October 2015 14:48 GMT

Last year, just after Jamaican author Marlon James‘ new book “A Brief History of Seven Killings” came out, I remember having a conversation with Marina Salandy-Brown, the founder of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, one of the Caribbean region's most lauded literary festivals. She was practically giddy over the brilliance of his writing and made this stunning prediction: “I think he has a real shot at winning The Man Booker Prize.”

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson / Review

 

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

In this dazzling novel, Howard Jacobson uses Jewishness as a way in to universal questions about life and society

Edward Docx
Sun 15 Aug 2010 00.05 BST

So what is the book about? Well, this is the story of Julian Treslove, once of the BBC (pleasingly satirised) and now making a living as a celebrity lookalike. Treslove is not Jewish but, in simple terms, the narrative details his love affair with and besotted inquiry into what Jewishness means – politically, socially, economically, romantically, intellectually, emotionally, culturally, musically and so on. Treslove has only a "timid" awareness of his place in the universe "ringed by a barbed wire fence of rights and limits". He wants to be part of something vast and ancient, something abounding and intense. He wants to be Jewish.

Man Booker prize / Bookies' favourite Jim Crace leads shortlist

 

Man Booker prize: Bookies' favourite Jim Crace leads shortlist

Six books, set all over the globe, range from 

Tuesday 10 September 2013 11.04 BST

Time for Harvest?... Jim Crace. Photograph: Ted Thai/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Bookies' favourite Jim Crace heads the six-strong Man Booker prize shortlist, announced this morning, with his fable about the enclosure of England's common lands, Harvest.

Also on the list are young New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton's hotly-tipped historical epic about New Zealand's gold rush, The Luminaries, and Colm Toibin's ultra-short novel about Jesus' mother, The Testament of Mary.

The three remaining books are Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland, moving between Calcutta and the US; NoViolet Bulawayo's debut novel We Need New Names, which takes a young girl from a Zimbabwean slum to America; and Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, about a suicidal Tokyo schoolgirl whose diary is washed up from the sea.

The judging panel, chaired by nature writer Robert Macfarlane, is made up of the broadcaster Martha Kearney, the critic and biographer Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, the classicist and critic Natalie Haynes and the author and critic Stuart Kelly. The £50,000 winner will be announced on 15 October.

The shortlist

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus) 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)

Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador) 

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury) 

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate) 

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Viking) 

THE GUARDIAN