Susan Choi – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTHA moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime...‘Ferociously smart and full of surprises’ Eleanor Catton‘Engrossing... Full of brains and mystery’ TelegraphOne evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk's disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.A Book of the Year for the Guardian, Time, New Yorker, Esquire, Vanity Fair, FT and Barack Obama‘Big, bold and surprising’ Guardian‘Illuminates the buried secrets of the human heart’ Oprah Daily‘Gorgeous... Almost impossibly heartbreaking’ New York Magazine‘It will make your head spin in the best way’ Dakota Johnson‘Endlessly dazzling’ VogueREADERS LOVE FLASHLIGHT‘Compelling, fascinating, original. Read this book’‘Five stars. Heartbreaking’‘A beautifully written story of a family across decades’‘I loved it - the best read in years. Glorious’‘Absolutely brilliant’

Two outsiders are drawn together in a powerful, emotionally gripping story of love and war – the debut novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author‘A major world writer’ New York TimesIn 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by a dark episode from the past.Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation.‘Epic and intimate’ The New Yorker‘A first novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness’ Los Angeles Times‘Elegantly wrought’ Vanity Fair

A young fugitive is drawn into a group of revolutionaries in this absorbing novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author‘I couldn’t put American Woman down’ Joan Didion‘A fascinating portrait of dangerous fragility’ New York TimesOn the run after an act of violence against the American government, twenty-five-year-old Jenny Shimada is drawn into caring for three younger fugitives. One of them, the kidnapped granddaughter of a San Francisco millionaire, has become a national celebrity for joining her captors’ revolutionary cell.Yet as Jenny and her charges pursue their destinies from an old farmhouse in upstate New York to California, isolation turns to paranoia and their radical ideals soon begin to fracture.‘Beautiful… A work of real achievement’ Jennifer Egan‘Mesmerising’ Vanity Fair‘Riveting, deeply affecting’ Jhumpa Lahiri'Amazing…compelling’ Los Angeles Times

This summer, meet Regina Gottlieb as she becomes entangled with a magnetic professor – and his volatile wife…‘A raw, wild, hurtling foray into the tangled realms of sexuality’ Jennifer Egan‘Fantastic… I wanted to read it all the time’ Meg WolitzerIn the heat of September, and the heady rush of starting her graduate degree, Regina Gottlieb is entranced by her controversial professor Nicholas Brodeur. Against all advice, she becomes embroiled in his world, only to betray him in a passionate love affair with his charismatic, volatile wife.This is the story of Regina’s mistakes, which begin in the bedroom and end – if they do – fifteen years in the future and thousands of miles away.‘A book that fulfils all the promise of a long, hot summer’ New York Magazine‘Smart and witty…so delicious’ Washington Post‘Surprised me and thrilled me’ The New Yorker‘An amazing book’ Michael Cunningham

A reclusive professor unravels the choices that have defined his life in this enthralling novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author‘Choi has the all-too-rare talent of making the political feel unsettlingly personal’ Vogue‘Gripping’ New York TimesProfessor Lee, a mathematician near retirement age, would seem the last person to attract the attention of the FBI. Yet after a star colleague is targeted by a mail bomb, even Lee’s own neighbours view him with damning suspicion.Bewildered and alone, Lee is compelled to revisit the complicated events of his past and to reckon with the painful choices – made as a husband, a father and a scholar – that continue to shape his life.‘A tour de force’ Washington Post‘Eloquent, penetrating’ O, The Oprah Magazine‘A revealing journey into the alienated heart of modern American life’ Los Angeles Times‘Masterful… Choi seems to be working in a genre all her own’ Salon

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTHLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime...‘Ferociously smart and full of surprises’ Eleanor Catton‘Engrossing... Full of brains and mystery’ TelegraphOne evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk's disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.A Book of the Year for the Guardian, Time, New Yorker, Esquire, Vanity Fair, FT and Barack Obama'Big, bold and surprising’ Guardian'Illuminates the buried secrets of the human heart' Oprah Daily'Gorgeous... Almost impossibly heartbreaking' New York Magazine'It will make your head spin in the best way' Dakota Johnson'Endlessly dazzling' VogueREADERS LOVE FLASHLIGHT'Compelling, fascinating, original. Read this book''Five stars. Heartbreaking''A beautifully written story of a family across decades''I loved it - the best read in years. Glorious''Absolutely brilliant'

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BOOKS OF THE YEARBoth inventive and shocking, Trust Exercise became a sensation on publication in the USA for its timely insights into sex, power and the nature of abuse. Sarah and David are in love - the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. At their performing arts school, the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers' lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime. Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we're initiated into the mysteries of adulthood.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BOOKS OF THE YEARBoth inventive and shocking, Trust Exercise became a sensation on publication in the USA for its timely insights into sex, power and the nature of abuse. Sarah and David are in love - the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. At their performing arts school, the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers' lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime. Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we're initiated into the mysteries of adulthood.