Modern literary fiction is often criticised for looking back rather than grappling with the crises and conflicts of the here and now. This event presents three novelists whose latest fictions pulse to the beating heart of contemporary life.

The Watch – the new novel from Indian-born, New York-based writer Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya takes an age-old story – the myth of Antigone – and hurls it into present-day Afghanistan where a group of beleaguered soldiers face an unforeseen confrontation.

The Apartment – the debut novel from fellow émigré Greg Baxter (a Berlin-based Texan) – sees an American veteran of the Iraq War exiled to an unnamed European city where the past he has tried to escape is revealed in brittle fragments.

Out of It is the first full-length fiction from acclaimed British Palestinian short story writer Selma Dabbagh. Set in Gaza, it tells the story of one Palestinian family trying to forge a place for themselves in a siege climate of dispossession and division.