LATEST TITLES

NEW BOY Tracy Chevalier, Hogarth, £12.99 (ebook £7.99)

SHAKESPEARE’S tragic hero Othello morphs into a 1970s black schoolboy in Tracy Chevallier’s reworking of one of the Bard’s most powerful plays. The betrayed Moor of Venice becomes Osei, a Ghanaian student who joins a new, all-white school in Washington, DC, and has to navigate the petty bigotries of the playground.

Chevalier’s backdrop of primary/ junior school relationships and the loneliness and challenges of the new student trying to forge friendships strikes a chord even without the additional and pivotal racial backdrop. But ultimately it struggles to convince, and some of the child dialogue feels pretty unconvincing.

Othello is a hard, brutal and grown-up drama of love, anger and betrayal that struggles to adequately be portrayed in New Boy.

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN Haruki Murakami, Harvill Secker, £16.99

OVER seven progressively off-kilter short stories, Japanese author Haruki Murakami delves into the subject of loneliness and, in particular, how it impacts on seven men.

Among them is a widower who finds comfort in his formidable new driver’s gear changes; a 30-something reflecting on a friendship at university and a love that wasn’t to be; a recent divorcee who sets out on a new path in life; and a plastic surgeon who has an unexpected change in outlook in his middle age.

Rooted more in the everyday and less in the surreal than previous work, each story still has the same familiar unfamiliarity Murakami does so well. Bearing hallmarks of his earlier stories.

Murakami still has something to say, and considering he is approaching his 70s, he captures youth with particular aplomb. A solid collection and a decent entry point to Murakami with a crisp take on love that should please fans.