AKIN

Emma Donoghue's new novel, AKIN, set between New York City and Nice, France, tells the story of a retired New York professor's life as it is thrown into upheaval when he takes a young great-nephew to the French Riviera, in the hopes of uncovering his own mother's wartime secrets.

Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France. He is days away from his long-awaited first trip back to Nice, prompted by a handful of puzzling photos he's discovered from his mother's years there during the Second World War. But he receives a call from social services: Noah is the closest available relative of his eleven-year-old great-nephew, a stranger to him. Michael's mother is in prison and his father is dead of an apparent overdose: he urgently needs someone to take him in.

Plagued by guilt and a feeling of duty to his dead sister (Michael's grandmother), Noah agrees to foster the kid 'just for couple of weeks', and takes him along on his visit to Nice. This unlikely duo, both feeling adrift in their lives and suffering from culture shock, argue about everything from steak frites to Snapchat.

Noah is disappointed by how much Nice has changed since he left, though the sea breeze is familiar and the old buildings still charming. When sharp-eyed Michael identifies the historic Hotel Excelsior in one of Noah's photographs, they decide to check in - but once inside their luxury suite, Noah's perception of his ancestral heritage starts to crack.

Shocking stories of the Nazi occupation surface: a hotel re-purposed for torture, a secret resistance movement, and Noah's mysterious mother on the front lines of history. As dark truths about this famous tourist mecca come to light, Noah learns to appreciate Michael's street-smart wit and ease with technology. He finally grasps the great risks people in all ages have taken for their kin.

Written with all the tenderness and psychological intensity that made Room a huge bestseller, Akin is a heart wrenching tale of an old man and a boy, born two generations apart, who unpick their family's painful story and start to write a new one together.

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her French partner and their two children. Her fascination with Nice developed over the two years her family have spent in that city. AKIN is her tenth novel. Donoghue's novels range from the historical (Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes, and was translated in 43 languages.