Collection One: Fiction

COLLECTION ONE: FICTION

Perhaps the best form of literary escapism can be found in fiction. From the Ancient Greeks to spiritual traditions of Africa, to 1980s Chicago and many places in between, this is a list of diverse worlds and characters that come from the minds of some of our favorite Festival speakers.

Please support local businesses and order your books from Festival bookseller Buxton Books’ online bookshop! Don’t see a title? Call them at 843.723.1670 and a bookseller will be happy to assist you.


Famished Road Ben Okri.jpg

The Famished Road by Ben Okri

The Man Booker Prize–winning blend of fabulism and gritty realism and the story of a spirit child straddling two worlds according to African legends


FranKISSstein Jeanette Winterson.jpg

FranKISSstein by Jeanette Winterson

An audacious love story that weaves together disparate lives into an exploration of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and queer love


Circe Madeline Miller.jpg

Circe by Madeline Miller

A bold and subversive re-telling of the life of a Greek goddess


My Life as a Rat Joyce Carol Oates.jpg

My Life as a Rat by Joyce Carol Oates

A story that traces a life of banishment from a family that forces a young woman to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from a long exile into a transformed life


Great Believers Rebecca Makkai.jpg

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris during the early stages of the AIDS epidemic