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Sign up todayThe Decameron Project
29 New Stories from the Pandemic
Length
6 hours 13 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Alex Allwine, Dennis Boutsikaris, Edwidge Danticat, Matthew Lloyd Davies, Kevin R. Free, Deepti Gupta, Lameece Issaq, Rachel Kushner, Rebecca Lowman, Robin Miles, David Mitchell, Tommy Orange & Uzodinma Iweala
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“A collection of stories anthologized by the editors of The New York Times, The Decameron Project offers diverse responses to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic by 29 of the most-respected authors of today. Some stories focus directly on the pandemic while others offer situations of isolation, angst, fear, fantasy. It is a gathering of a moment in time, much as a covid-19 test offers a snapshot of a moment in time, hovering and weighty, between panic and calm, between the past and an uncertain future, a fragile balance. This anthology feels important. Taken alone, each story is well-written, as one would expect, and each is quite unique and generally compelling. The stories are read by a large, excellent cast, some by the authors themselves. Taken together, the stories are commentary of a sort, art in response to a monolithic event, a historical document. But for the listener, maybe most importantly, these stories are engaging and entertaining.”
— Nancy • Raven Book Store
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.
Reviews
"Award-winning narrators Robin Miles and Dennis Boutsikaris lead a group of first-rate voice talents in delivering this collection of 29 specially commissioned short stories centered on the COVID-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE rounded up a veritable who's who of contemporary American authors, including Margaret Atwood, Victor LaValle, and Dina Nayeri, and pulled together an astonishing array of fresh, personal, and immediate takes on a world taken hostage by the virus. The genres range from ghost story to science fiction to magic realism, and in each the narrators keep the tone intimate and conversational. One hopes this is just the beginning of a fresh, breathlessly affecting, and essential literary conversation." Expand reviewsWe Are LIT is proud to partner with Libro.fm to give you a great audiobook experience.
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