ADAM JOHNSON won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for his second novel, the
New York Times bestseller
The Orphan Master’s Son (‘Excavates the very meaning of life’
New York Times). His short story 'Nirvana' won the prestigious
Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of acclaimed story collections,
Fortune Smiles and
Emporium and the novel
Parasites Like Us. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives with his family in San Francisco.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2015
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013
WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES EFG SHORT STORY AWARD 2014
By the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner of THE ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - for fans of international literary fiction, especially Hanya Yanigahara, Jonathan Franzen and Anthony Doerr.
'Unputdownable is an overused word, but at their best these stories are completely gripping.' Sunday Times
'Ironic, witty, super-intelligent' - The Times
'Terrific. Shows exactly why Johnson is rated as one of the hottest American writers of his generation' Mail on Sunday
Adam Johnson takes you into the minds of characters you never thought you would meet – a former Stasi prison warden in denial of his past, a refugee from North Korea unsettled by his new freedom, a UPS driver in hurricane-torn Louisiana looking for the mother of his son.
These are tales of love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. Tender, wry, utterly compelling, they show us humanity where you might least expect it.
Ironic, witty, super-intelligentIt is impossible not to be awed by these stories. Life, marriage, love, death, are all described here in the most amazingly unexpected ways; it seems at times that Adam, like the greatest of the great writers, has some kind of supernatural facility that allows him to see through to the pitch black core of things and to create a crystalline portrait of what he witnessesUnputdownable is an overused word, but at their best these stories are completely gripping.Johnson has a rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication . . . These stories are treasures.Johnson packs more voice in his stories than most authors do in a novelMasterful...formidable, meaty tales that cling on and don’t let go.[Adam Johnson] is always perceptive and brave; his lines always sing and strut and sizzle and hush and wash and blaze over the reader.Adam Johnson . . . demonstrates again his boundless imagination, his ability to capture an entire personality in a few perfectly chosen details, and his gift for making foreign territory feel utterly familiar. Johnson is willing to go into real darkness and send a beacon back from the depths of tragedy, and his voice is as inevitable and fresh as anything being written today.Entrancing.[Adam Johnson] serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise in his edgy, inviting
Fortune Smiles . . . compulsively readable.[A] bold and deeply wise collectionStartlingly, blazingly original.[A] riveting collection of short stories ... darkly imagined, slightly surrealExhilarating ... His mastery of setting simply wowed me.Marked by the conflicts of heart and mind, and the exuberant quality of its compassionate prose.Compulsively readable ... Johnson serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise.A rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication ... these stories are treasures.Bittersweet, elegant, full of ward-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book either.Hefty and memorable ...the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sing into worlds we otherwise know little or nothing about.Terrific. Shows exactly why Johnson is rated as one of the hottest writers of his generation.
