The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
Freedom at novels’ heart
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends two novels telling of real contemporary experiences that question the nature of liberty and fraternity in present times

Down with the Poor!
By Shumona Sinha
LesFugitives Press, £12.99
Eastbound
By Maylis de Kerangal
LesFugitives Press, £10.99
SHUMONA Sinha’s Down with the Poor! translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan, sets up a complex and perplexing position on south Asian immigration to France.
The first-person narrative belongs to a young Indian woman, a translator at asylum appeal hearings in Paris. She is spending the night in police cells having smashed a bottle over a man’s head — an asylum-seeker.
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