Casualties of Truth (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Lauren Francis-Sharma is the author of Casualties of Truth, longlisted for the 2026 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction; Book of the Little Axe, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and the critically acclaimed novel ’Til the Well Runs Dry. She was a MacDowell fellow and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College. She lives near Washington, D.C. with her family.

Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma

A riveting literary novel with the sharp edges of a thriller about the abuses of history and the costs of revenge, set between Washington, D.C., and Johannesburg, South Africa.

Prudence Wright seems to have it all: a loving husband, Davis; a spacious home in Washington, D.C.; and the former glories of a successful career at McKinsey, which now enables her to dedicate her days to her autistic son, Roland. When she and Davis head out for dinner with one of Davis’s new colleagues, Prudence has little reason to think that certain details of her history might arise sometime between cocktails and the appetizer course.Yet when Davis’s colleague turns out to be Matshediso, a man from Prudence’s past, she is transported back to the formative months she spent as a law student in South Africa in 1996. As an intern at a Johannesburg law firm, Prudence attended sessions of the Truth and Reconciliation hearings that uncovered the many horrors and human rights abuses of the Apartheid state, and which fundamentally shaped her sense of righteousness and justice. Prudence experienced personal horrors in South Africa as well, long hidden and now at risk of coming to light. When Matshediso finally reveals the real reason behind his sudden reappearance, he will force Prudence to examine her most deeply held beliefs and to excavate inner reserves of resilience and strength.

With keen insight and gripping tension, Casualties of Truth explosively mines questions of whether we are ever truly able to remove the stains of our past and how we may attempt to reconcile with unquestionable wrongs.