The best books of 2023, as chosen by The Economist
Deadly Quiet City. By Murong Xuecun. New Press; 336 pages; $27.99.
Hardie Grant; £14.99 In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, a celebrated Chinese writer interviewed people in Wuhan, China, about their experiences during lockdown. His brave and vital book follows eight subjects, including a doctor at a small hospital, an unlicensed driver of a motorcycle taxi, and a citizen journalist whose daring efforts resulted in a prison sentence. Fear Is Just a Word.
By Azam Ahmed. Random House; 384 pages; $28. Fleet; £22 Since the early 2000s the number of Mexicans who have disappeared has rocketed to more than 100,000.
A former bureau chief for the New York Times in Mexico tracks Miriam, whose youngest daughter is kidnapped and then killed by the Zeta gang. By focusing on one mother’s extraordinary story, the author evokes the cartels’ painful toll. Flowers of Fire. By Hawon Jung.
BenBella Books; 304 pages; $18.95 and £15.99 A brilliant examination of South Korean feminists’ struggle for gender equality that has global resonance. In describing how Korean women are treated as cooks, cleaners and “baby-making machines", this spirited book illuminates a country grappling with a rapid and uneven ascent to wealth and modernity. The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory.
By Tim Alberta. Harper; 496 pages; $35 This chronicle of the modern evangelical movement in America is a horror story told from the inside. Its author, a staff writer for the Atlantic, grows angry and heartbroken as he watches the religious community in which he was raised hijacked by power-hungry hucksters and right-wing nationalists.
Some People Need Killing. By Patricia Evangelista. Random House; 448 pages; $30.
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