With a “delicate touch and note-perfect writing” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Elise Juska’s books include One for Sorrow, Two for Joy; The Hazards of Sleeping Alone; and Getting Over Jack Wagner, a People magazine “Critic’s Choice”; and her short fiction has been published widely and cited as distinguished by The Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She directs the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she received the Liberal Arts Division’s Director’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2002. Her new novel follows a close-knit Irish-Catholic family in Philadelphia across two decades.

“A supernova in the galaxy of young, talented Indian writers” (Publishers Weekly), Akhil Sharma received the PEN/Hemingway Award for his debut novel, An Obedient Father, a shocking story of a corrupt civil servant in Delhi. His other honors the Whiting Writers’ Award and several O. Henry Prizes, and he was named to Granta’s once-a-decade Best Young American Novelists list. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Best American Short Stories anthology. His short story “Cosmopolitan” was adapted into a lauded film of the same name. In Family Life, a boy struggles to find his way in both his new country and through the ruins of family tragedy.

Known for prose that reads “like a song, with all the pulse of the Irish language” (New York Times) Sebastian Barry has explored his country’s heritage and the impact of British rule in Ireland in such plays as Boss Grady’s Boys and the award-winning The Steward of Christendom. Also a prolific poet and novelist, Barry is the author of the acclaimed Annie Dunne and A Long, Long Way, and his twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. In his new novel, an Irish soldier in Ghana recollects a life of war, world travel, and the woman he loved and lost.