Akoya Publishing

‘Where there is money, there will be sex.’Anthropologist Sine Plambech has dedicated her life to pursuing the trail of sex and money across continents. In Global Sex, she draws back the curtain on a hidden world, sharing intimate conversations with sex workers from Nigeria and Thailand living in Europe. And when she retraces the treacherous routes that led them from their families, she finds lives transformed by the money that absent mothers, daughters, wives and sisters send home. Plambech is unsparing in her analysis of the international sex trade, yet compassionate in her treatment of the women who work in it. It is these women who take centre stage, reminding us that behind every statistic, there is a human story.

I’M FRIGHTENED OF MY DREAMS, OF EVERYTHING I DON’T KNOW, BUT ALSO OF EVERYTHING I KNOW. Marisol’s country is collapsing. A military coup sends the five-year-old and her family fleeing into the night. They seek shelter in a refugee camp where her parents try to protect her from danger while they await asylum. Marisol spends her adult life trying to cope with the memories from her childhood, the aunts and uncles she left behind, the friends whose names she no longer recalls. But when her boyfriend wants to learn more about her past, she finds herself confronting the trauma that haunts her. Chiquitita is a tender novel about flight and exile, the passing of time, and the experiences that remain with us, refusing erasure.

‘Who is Gelsomina to remark on love? Much of life has never happened for her.’Gelsomina lives inside a house made of glass. Its cold, clear form separates her from the world beyond, and her architect owners dictate the monotonous structure of her days. She yearns for something, but she does not know what. Two creatures live inside Gelsomina, her warm flesh a vessel that contains them. They grow stronger while she begins to fade. As time passes, the lovable French bulldog and the parasites she hosts confront questions that have vexed philosophers for centuries: Who designed this life that I am living? Do they have a plan for me? Do I have free will to live my life as I pleas? bold and inventive debut examining the structures that both comfort and constrain us, The Oldest Bitch Alive offers a poignant meditation on our search for meaning.

They go for a walk by the playing fields, the anemones are out. In the small Danish town of Rodby, a mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter live uneventfully, each day marked by routine and a quiet intimacy. Together, they are a family; complete, content – and fragile. When the mother begins to feel unwell, everything and nothing changes. They go about their lives, talk about anything but the diagnosis. The daughter takes tentative steps into adulthood. Still, illness – and the possibility of loss – cast an expansive shadow over the rituals of daily life. they is a tender and piercing exploration of a mother–daughter relationship, brought into startling focus by Helle Helle’s distinctive, immediate prose.

''I''m going to tell you what happened to me and what didn''t happen to me. The possibility that nothing happened to me is what shocks me the most.'' Marta believes she is dying. With the onset of menopause, the changes to her body are stirring up new anxieties. Every time she feels a pain in her chest, a numbness in her arm or a tension in her clavicle, she assumes she has cancer, or some other diagnosis she has yet to learn of. During a flight, she starts to experience a pain underneath her rib. Unsure whether this signals the ominous approach of death or a simple bout of flatulence, Marta descends into an examination of pain''s impact upon her life. Is pain a symptom of fatal illness or anxiety? Is her body failing or is she failing her body? From one of Spain''s most widely read and acclaimed authors, My Clavicle and Other Massive Misalignments is a provocative and vulnerable semi-autobiographical novel rendering a memorable portrait of pain, health anxiety and menopause.

''Do you glow in the dark?'' In 1987, an unsecured source of radiotherapy was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiania, Brazil, resulting in four deaths and 249 contaminations. Liliana Colanzi''s debut collection is inspired by this radiological disaster, where each story seizes the reader''s attention through her unpredictable and original storytelling. Colanzi transgresses the distinction between reality and fiction, time and genre, to create a striking exploration of toxic waste and its impact on local lives and the environment. Where a harmless object or place holds an invisible threat and the reader is left wondering what is real. You Glow in the Dark is an impactful and experimental collection that exemplifies the genius of Colanzi''s writing.