The Poisonwood Bible follows the Price family, led by the missionary preacher Nathan, as they move from their home in Georgia in the US to the small village of Kilanga in what was then the Belgian Congo. While it is Nathan’s vocation that takes the family to Africa, the novel is told from the perspective of the five women of the family: the mother Oreleanna, who narrates from a retrospective position, later in life, and the four daughters of the family.

The Inheritance of Loss is a novel that focuses on the diverse experiences of the inhabitants of a decaying colonial-era mansion in Kalimpong, and their relatives and friends. The primary focus is on two characters: Sai, an orphan living with her grandfather, retired judge Jemubhai Patel; and Biju, the son of the house's cook, who is living in New York illegally.

The Famished Road is the first part of a trilogy (with Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998)) following a “spirit-child” (or abiku) living in Africa (most likely Nigeria) named Azaro (a shortening of Lazarus.) The long, dream-like and poetic novel explores Azaro’s connection to a world of magical and often grotesque spirits, ingrained in the traditions of his culture, as well as his relationship with his parents, struggling in poverty in a rat-infested room in a compound controlled by an unpleasant landlord.

Kerewin Holmes, sometime painter and amateur musician, is getting on with her somewhat solitary life in her self-built Tower home on the coast of New Zealand’s South Island, when she is visited by a troubled yet precocious mute child going by the name of Simon. Simon, the victim of the shipwreck of a European vessel in which his parents were presumed killed, is in the care of Joe, a local man of mostly Maori heritage, who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Kerewin based (largely) on his willingness to keep her company playing chess, cooking various largely fish-based meals and drinking alarming quantities of alcohol.

Michael K, a poor man with a cleft lip, quits his job as a gardener in Cape Town to honour his sick mother’s wishes to return her to the countryside of her childhood, in Prince Albert. In a fictionalized South Africa which is descending into civil war, Michael is unable to leave freely by ordinary means due to a (shall we say, kafkaesque?) bureaucracy that is purposefully paradoxical and impossible to defeat, so sets off on an impossibly long journey, carrying his mother through heavily guarded streets and freezing nights on a shoddily improvised rickshaw.

Midnight’s Children is a novel of many parts, meanings and interpretations. It tells the story not just of the complex and fantastic life of a man, Saleem Sinai, but of a young nation for whom Saleem is a mirror / proxy. It covers a large time period (from 30 years prior to the birth of Saleem / India to the present day), movements across the whole Indian subcontinent, wars, rises and falls of families and political dynasties, and people (including real people, proxies for real people, fictional inventions and fantastical creations.) There are, as they say, many worlds contained within these pages.