Top ten novels about neighbors

Ayşegül Savaş is a Turkish writer living in Paris. Her first novel, Walking on the Ceiling, was published in 2019.

Her new novel is White on White.

At the Guardian Savaş tagged ten books that "investigate lives at close proximity, at once familiar and distant," including:

By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah

One afternoon, Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick airport from Zanzibar, seeking asylum. He is taken to a B&B where other men, from Kosovo and the Czech Republic, are lodging. Though they share the same strange accommodation, they know little about the histories that have brought them here. The only person in England who knows Omar is the son of the man whose name Omar has taken, once a neighbour in Zanzibar. When the two meet, a story of the past is revealed, at once intimate and mysterious, the fates of the men entangled profoundly.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue