Fifi Bat-hef

Title: Cape Fever Author: Nadia David Publisher: Scribner UK Year: 2026 Cape Fever by Nadia Davids is a slim, slow-burning gothic tale set in 1920’s colonial South Africa, where every day routines erode into unease and subtle manipulations accumulate. Nineteen-year-old Soraya Matas lands a job at the residence of an elderly English widow, Mrs. Alice Hattingh. On paper it is an ideal arrangement: live-in maid, good wages, and one Sunday off a fortnight. In reality, it is a slow suffocation.

On the 17th day of Israel’s resumed war on Lebanon, which began on 2 March 2026, hospitals are under severe strain as Israeli strikes destroy buildings, including a 10-storey structure near a city centre, and have killed medical staff, while the war has displaced nearly one million people.

Book Club: We speak to Bassem Khandaqji on identity, erasure, and the radical power of imagination behind 'A Mask, the Colour of the Sky' Last October, Palestinian novelist Bassem Khandaqji was released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange. It was during his years behind bars that he wrote A Mask, the Colour of the Sky (قناع بلون السماء), a psychologically layered novel that explores identity, erasure and the politics of narration.