Shibboleth

Want to make it among the wealthy, upper-class students at the University of Oxford? Then you’d better have something interesting to say about your identity.

Luckily, Edward does. He may lack privilege and polish, but he can claim a long-dead Muslim grandfather from an obscure African country—and at Oxford, that’s enough to get him noticed. At the start of his second year, he suddenly finds himself in demand, even attracting the attention of the beautiful but volatile Angelica Mountbatten-Jones.

As Edward tries to belong, his carefully shaped story starts to unravel. How long before his friends grow suspicious? And what happens when his feelings—and his lies—become impossible to separate?

A darkly comic debut, Shibboleth drags the English campus novel into the fractured, hyper-aware present.