A stunning collection of new fiction previously published as The Decameron Project and originally commissioned by The New York Times Magazine as the COVID-19 pandemic first spread across the world, from twenty-nine authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Kushner, Colm Tóibín, Charles Yu, and more.
When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it...
In 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables.
In March 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine worked to create a collection of stories written just as the pandemic first swept the globe. How might new fiction from some of today's finest writers help us memorialize and understand the unimaginable? And what could be learned about how this crisis will affect the art of fiction?
These Stories from Quarantine by twenty-nine authors vary widely in texture and tone. The work is a historical tribute to a moment unlike any other in our lifetimes, offering perspective and solace to the reader now and in the uncertain future.
Table of Contents:
"Preface" by Caitlin Roper
"Introduction" by Rivka Galchen
"Recognition" by Victor LaValle
"A Blue Sky Like This" by Mona Awad
"The Walk" by Kamila Shamsie
"Tales from the LA River" by Colm Tóibín
"Clinical Notes" by Liz Moore
"The Team" by Tommy Orange
"The Rock" by Leila Slimani
"Impatient Griselda" by Margaret Atwood
"Under the Magnolia" by Yiyun Li
"Outside" by Etgar Keret
"Keepsakes" by Andrew O'Hagan
"The Girl with the Big Red Suitcase" by Rachel Kushner
"The Morningside" by Téa Obreht
"Screen Time" by Alejandro Zambra
"How We Used to Play" by Dinaw Mengestu
"Line 19 Woodstock/Glisan" by Karen Russell
"If Wishes Was Horses" by David Mitchell
"Systems" by Charles Yu
"The Perfect Travel Buddy" by Paolo Giordano
"An Obliging Robber" by Mia Couto
"Sleep" by Uzodinma Iweala
"Prudent Girls" by Rivers Solomon
"That Time at My Brother's Wedding" by Laila Lalami
"A Time of Death, The Death of Time" by Julián Fuks
"The Cellar" by Dina Nayeri
"Origin Story" by Matthew Baker
"To the Wall" by Esi Edugyan
"Barcelona: Open City" by John Wray
"One Thing" by Edwidge Danticat From the editors of The New York Times Magazine, including Caitlin Roper, Claire Gutierrez, Sheila Glaser, and Jake Silverstein.
Dennis Boutsikaris won an OBIE Award for his performance in Sight Unseen and played Mozart in Amadeus on Broadway. Among his films are *batteries not included, The Dream Team, and Boys On the Side. His many television credits include And Then There Was One, Chasing the Dragon, and 100 Center Street.
Rachel Kushner is the author of the New York Times bestseller Creation Lake, her latest novel; The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection; and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, and was twice a finalist for the Booker Prize and the National Book Award in Fiction. Creation Lake was also longlisted for the National Book Award. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages. "Award-winning narrators Robin Miles and Dennis Boutsikaris lead a group of first-rate voice talents in delivering this collection of 2
