Good People
The most talked-about debut novel of 2026
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- 85,00 kr
Publisher Description
CHOSEN AS A 2026 MUST-READ BOOK BY THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, STYLIST, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, NEW ARAB AND BBC CULTURE
'AWFULLY ADDICTIVE . . . PEOPLE, GOOD AND BAD, ARE GOING TO LOVE IT' GUARDIAN
'A SPECTACULAR TRIUMPH' KHALED HOSSEINI
'THRILLING. I'LL BE RECOMMENDING THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE' ANN PATCHETT
'GORGEOUS AND POWERFUL' TOMMY ORANGE, NEW YORK TIMES
'A SWEEPING FAMILY SAGA' SUNDAY TIMES
'GRIPPING STUFF' DAILY MAIL
'UTTERLY ADDICTIVE . . . WILL HAVE EVERYONE TALKING' PAULA HAWKINS
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EVERYONE THINKS THEY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED . . .
The Sharaf family is the picture of success. They arrived in America as refugees with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. And now, after years of hard work, they live in the most exclusive neighbourhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father's eye.
But when Zorah dies in an unthinkable tragedy, the family is thrust into the court of public opinion. There is talk that the Sharafs' happy household was anything but, and soon the veneer of the model immigrant family starts to crumble.
Those who knew her best - and those who never met her - all have an opinion on who Zorah really was, and what really happened to her . . .
Told through the chorus of voices surrounding the Sharafs, Good People is a riveting, provocative and unforgettable story of community, family and identity.
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'THRILLING AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING' ECONOMIST
'PROPULSIVE' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
'BRILLIANT' MONICA ALI
'ADDICTIVELY READABLE' STYLIST
'A BLINDER OF A DEBUT' IRISH INDEPENDENT
'GRIPPING AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING' LOUISE O'NEILL
'A CLEVER WHODUNNIT' RED
'UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE YOU'LL READ THIS YEAR' ANNA BAILEY
'THRILLING AND ADDICTIVE' INEWS
'ABSOLUTELY RIVETING' EMMA VAN STRAATEN
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sabit debuts with an electrifying whodunit about the suspicious death of an Afghan American teen. The Sharaf family fled Afghanistan for northern Virginia, where Rahmat manages to build a fortune via a one-man gutter-cleaning business while Maryam raises their four children. They move into a mansion and send their children to exclusive schools, with visions of their older daughter, Zorah, attending an Ivy League university and becoming a Supreme Court justice. Then Zorah's body is found in a submerged Mercedes, and her death is rumored to be an honor killing. Structured like an oral history, in which none of the Sharafs speak for themselves, the novel creates a complex portrait of the family through interviews with others in their Afghan community along with classmates, school officials, lawyers and journalists. Along the way, Sabit lays bare jealousies, rifts, and competing perceptions. For example, the first-generation immigrants interviewed describe Zorah as a girl run amok, while her classmates recall a girl who dressed modestly in gym class and wasn't allowed to mention boys at home. While the large cast blurs together, Sabit expertly captures the cadence of her characters' voices and the tangle of their cultural biases. This propulsive tale heralds Sabit as a writer worth keeping tabs on.
