The Bone Fire

A New York Times Editors' Choice  Finalist for the Prix du Meilleur LivreÉtranger (France)  Finalist for the Premio von Rezzori (Italy)  Long-listed for the Prix Femina (France)   "[The Bone Fire] achieves a disconcerting juxtaposition of the mundane and the primeval. On one level, it’s a real-world coming-of-age story, in which a teenager navigates both post-Communist aftershocks and the more personal issues of menstruation, crushes, friendships and bathing suits — and on another, it’s a tale of magic, ghosts and ancient memory . . . The timing is perfect: The novel reaches an American audience at a moment when we’re feeling not only the seismic shifts of historical change, and the hard reckoning after a strongman’s fall, but also the ways magical thinking, conspiracy and rumor seep through the cracks during times of turmoil . . . This is a story, after all, in...