Milkman

In a city without names but thick with suspicion, middle sister tries to keep her head down. She walks while reading books, attends French classes at night, and avoids taking sides in a place where neutrality is dangerous. But when a shadowy figure known only as Milkman, a high-ranking paramilitary, begins to take an interest in her, everything changes.

Her refusal to engage with him doesn’t matter—rumors spiral, eyes turn, and her once-anonymous life becomes the subject of communal scrutiny. As paranoia grows and boundaries dissolve, middle sister finds herself caught between silence and survival, resistance and compliance.

With biting humor, rhythmic prose, and an acute eye for the menace embedded in the everyday, Milkman explores what it means to be watched, controlled, and misread in a politically charged landscape. It’s a haunting, uncompromising portrait of a society teetering under the weight of its own fear—and of one young woman’s attempt to remain herself in a world that demands obedience.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize.