Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

In the 1960s, a Beijing student goes into voluntary exile in a remote settlement on the Mongolian grasslands. He arrives in time to experience the dying days of an ancient way of life in which nomadic huntsmen and herders live in delicate symbiosis with the land. Their greatest enemies, both feared and deeply respected, are the wolf packs of the plains. Winner of the first Man Asian Literary prize, Wolf Totem has some memorable writing (an exceptionally vivid description of wolves hunting down wild horses, for instance) but is flawed by too many pages in which characters, for the benefit of ignorant readers, stand around exchanging information about their lives one would assume they already knew or speechifying unconvincingly about the spirituality of the wolves.

The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman

Kidnapped by pirates, Celia Lamprey ends up in the harem of Sultan Mehmet III. The year is 1599 and a delegation has arrived in Constantinople to negotiate a trading agreement between the Ottoman empire and Elizabeth I's England. One of the delegation is Paul Pindar, Celia's former fiancé. As the harem is convulsed by the poisoning of the chief eunuch and by the power struggle between the sultan's favourite and his mother, Pindar learns of the new slave and must decide what to do next. Hickman's historical romance-cum-mystery makes for an enjoyable read spoiled only by her decision to embed it in a much weaker, modern story of an academic rediscovering documents about Celia's life and suffering her own, significantly less interesting setbacks in love.

The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri

Making the bold decision as a male author to tell his second novel entirely in the voice of a woman, Suri, the author of The Death of Vishnu, has created a compelling central character in Meera Sawnhey. Meera's seeming ordinariness becomes extraordinary as she describes her journey from teenage rebellion against her dominating father, through marriage to a weak-willed alcoholic to an intense, almost incestuous relationship with her only son. Set against the backdrop of post-independence Indian politics and all-pervading tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and drawing from the deep wells of both Indian mythology and Bollywood movies, The Age of Shiva is a complex, clever and rewarding narrative.

Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
Hamish Hamilton £17.99 pp532
The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman
Bloomsbury £12.99 pp342
The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri
Bloomsbury £14.99 pp464

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