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Description
**Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025**
**A Time Book of the Year 2025**
A portrait of the artist as a young woman in a Berlin that can't escape its history: an electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of nightclubs, bad romance, and self-discovery
'Kaleidoscopic, full of style and soul' Raven Leilani
'A must-read … Dark, breathtaking, profound, so fresh' Guardian
'A no-bullshit must-read debut' Kaveh Akbar
'Delicious, propulsive reading' Vogue
Born in Germany to Afghan parents, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice. Now in Berlin's techno-filled warehouses, their walls still scarred by the ravages of the last century, she has found her tribe.
Then Nila meets American writer Marlowe. As she is sucked into his seductive but controlling orbit, and ugly racial tensions begin to roil through Germany, she is forced to ask herself the question she's been running from: who does she want to be?
'Rarely has the wildness and bewilderment of youth been conveyed with such richly textured heat' Garth Greenwell
Product details
| Published | 01 Jan 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Paperback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 368 |
| ISBN | 9781526679109 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Dimensions | 198 x 129 mm |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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A beautiful coming-of-age story about identity and self-discovery
ELLE, The Cult Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2025
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A must-read … Dark, breathtaking, profound, so fresh … Nila shines in her wildness, in her yearning for beauty and freedom
GUARDIAN
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The coming-of-age story you need to read this month ... Literally pulsates with the sounds of the Berlin nightclub scene ... Aria Aber is an author to watch.
GLAMOUR, 19 best new books to buy this month
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An astonishing and compelling book ... A revelation
HARPER'S BAZAAR, Five debut female authors to read in 2025
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Aber touches the heart of a young woman struggling to find herself in the heat of clashing cultures ... You'll be immediately arrested by the haunting beauty of her work and the way desire pushes against the seams of despair
WASHINGTON POST
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Impressive … At heart, the novel is about the allure of freedom and the estrangement from others that is the cost of both exile and artistic creation … Aber writes with the masterful precision of an archivist … Exile, migration, displacement: These will splinter even the most solid self. But out of the shards, it is possible to make art, as Nila finally realizes – and as Aber has done in this touching novel
THE ATLANTIC

























