Our top book picks this week: why Pakistan’s top squash player had to hide her identity

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A Different Kind of Daughter by Maria Toorpakai

Maria Toorpakai is Pakistan’s top squash player. But until the age of 12, she disguised herself as a boy so she could compete. When her identity was revealed she received death threats for “un-Islamic” behaviour. This is her story. (Bluebird, February 25)

West of Eden: An American Place by Jean Stein

A sweeping oral history of 1950s and 1960s Hollywood and the studios’ murky origins. Stein, who grew up in a Hollywood Hills mansion, has interviewed the likes of Arthur Miller, Dennis Hooper and Lauren Bacall. (Jonathan Cape, February 4)

Stalin’s Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics by Marina Frolova-Walker

Every year Joseph Stalin awarded prizes to the musicians deemed to best represent Soviet culture. This looks at the artists who won these prizes, such as Sergei Prokofiev, and sheds light on the dictator’s tastes. (Yale, February 4)

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

April, 1975. As the Americans leave Vietnam and the Vietcong troops advance, a South Vietnamese general prepares to flee with some colleagues. But he is unaware that one is a spy for North Vietnam. Thriller that examines the legacy of the war. (Corsair, February 4)

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Ijeoma’s father is killed and she is separated from her mother. Set in 1968 at the height of Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, this looks at Ijeoma’s attempts to move on and her friendship with another lost girl. In 2013, Okparanta was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. (Granta Books, February 4)

Fractured by Clár Ní Chonghaile

When Nina’s son is kidnapped in Mogadishu, she travels to the Somali capital to help her son. But it brings back difficult memories of the fatal shooting in Liberia of Shaun Ridge, a photographer she once loved. Political thriller that examines if people can ever truly escape the past. (Legend Press, February 1)