Literary débuts of 2008

THERE IS TRULY no greater pleasure than in discovering a new author whose finely crafted prose and storytelling skills grab you by the lapel. Here are just some of the most eagerly anticipated literary débuts of 2008:

1. Say You’re One of Them (Little, Brown, 2008) / Uwem Akpan
2. White Tiger (Atlantic, April 2008) / Aravind Adiga
3. The Painter of Shanghai (Penguin, April 2008) / Jennifer Cody Epstein
4. Submarine (Penguin/Hamish Hamilton, February 2008) / Joe Dunthorne
5. The Night of the Mi’raj (Little, Brown, 2008) / Zoë Ferraris
6. The Gone Away World (William Heinemann, June 2008) / Nick Harkaway
7. A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Jonathan Cape, June 2008) / Mohammed Hanif
8. Dervishes (Picador USA, 2008) / Beth Helms
9. Wolf Totem (trans. from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt) (Hamish Hamilton, March 2008) / Jiang Rong
10. Crusaders (Faber & Faber, January 2008) / Richard T. Kelly
11. God’s Own Country (Viking, March 2008) / Ross Raisin
12. Evening Is the Whole Day (Houghton Mifflin/Fourth Estate, May 2008) / Preeta Samarasan
13. Little Hut of Leaping Fishes (Picador, July 2008) / Chiew-Siah Tei
14. The House of Midnight (Bloomsbury, January 2008) / Lucie Whitehouse
15. Road from Damascus (Penguin/Hamish Hamilton, June 2008) / Robin Yassin-Kassab