Neighbors and Other Stories (Faber Editions): 'Breathtaking' - Tayari Jones; 'Brilliant' - Damon Galgut

And she was becoming frightened too, looking at all those white faces pressed against the windowpanes.

One family comes under attack as their little boy prepares to start at an all-white school. Friends plan a sit-in at the Rose Crest Tea Room, only to be arrested. A female student - always the 'Experiment' - fails to integrate at a formerly segregated college: ignored by a sea of white faces, the closet is her refuge. And when a social worker enters a family's woodland cabin - a sanctuary haunted by memories of their lost baby, and silenced son - she meets the fate of all visitors.

Tragically killed aged 22 in 1966, Diane Oliver's masterly stories resonate with renewed urgency. Steeped in the uncanny horror of everyday life for the Black community in the American South of the Jim Crow era, these chilling tales explore toxic racism and the human toll of activism for 'the cause' with heartbreaking empathy and wisdom. Depicting families whole and broken, daily injustices and life-threatening struggle, Neighbors restores a vital missing voice to the canon.