Hernan Diaz (writer)

For other people named Hernán Diaz, see Hernán Diaz (disambiguation).

File:Hernan Diaz, May 2022 (cropped).jpg

Diaz in 2022

Hernan Diaz (born 1973) is an Argentine-American writer. His 2017 novel In the Distance was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He also received a Whiting Award. For his second novel Trust, he was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Personal life

Diaz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he was two, his family moved to Sweden after the military coup. His family returned to Argentina after democracy was restored in 1983. Diaz was interested in writing at an early age, and even "pretended" to write, showing his parents his "stories." After obtaining a BA in Literature (Licenciatura en Letras) in the University of Buenos Aires, Diaz moved to London to study a MA degree at King's College.

Diaz moved to New York in 1999 for additional studies. He received his PhD from New York University, advised by Avital Ronell and Sylvia Molloy. He filed a dissertation on a topic that straddles comparative literature, Latin American literature, and philosophy.

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Career

Diaz has received fellowships from the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Ingmar Bergman Estate.

Diaz has published two novels, which have been published in more than 20 languages. His essays and short stories have been published in The Paris Review, Granta, Playboy, The Yale Review, and McSweeney's.

Aside from his writing, he is the associate director of the Hispanic Institute for Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University, and serves as the managing editor of the Spanish-language journal Revista Hispánica Moderna.

In 2019, he won a Whiting Award, which provides "$50,000 each to ten diverse emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama." The award is provided "based on the criteria of early-career achievement and the promise of superior literary work to come."

His second novel, Trust, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. It was also named one of the "10 Best Books of 2022" by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Selected works

Borges, Between History and Eternity (2012)

Borges, Between History and Eternity was published by Continuum on August 2, 2012. The book considers "key aspects of Borges's work — the reciprocal determinations of politics, philosophy and literature; the simultaneously confining and emancipating nature of language; and the incipient program for a literature of the Americas."

In the Distance (2017)

Main article: In the Distance

In the Distance was published on October 10, 2017 by Coffee House Press.

Publishers Weekly, Feminist Press, PANK, and The Paris Review named it one of the top books of 2017, and Literary Hub named it one of "The 20 Best Novels of the Decade."

The book has received the following accolades:

• William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for Fiction (2018)
• VCU Cabell First Novelist Award (2018)
• Prix Page America Award (2018)
• New American Voices Award (2018)
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist (2018)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction finalist (2018)

Trust (2022)

Main article: Trust (novel)

Trust was published by Riverhead Books on May 3, 2022. It received the 2022 Kirkus Prize and 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Publications

Novels

• In the Distance (2017), ISBN 978-1-56689-488-3
• Trust (2022), ISBN 9780593420317

Nonfiction books

• Borges, Between History and Eternity (2012), ISBN 9781441197795

Short stories

• "The Wife of the Lion" (2018) in The Kenyon Review
• "1,111 Emblems" (2018) in Playboy
• "'I Am Going to Speak to You about Anxiety'" (2018) in Granta
• "The Stay" (2018) in The Paris Review
• "The World of Interiors" (2022) in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
• "The Generation" (2022) in The Atlantic
• "Triptych" (2023) in Harper's Magazine

Essays

• "On Making Oneself Less Unreadable" (2017) in The Paris Review
• "If I Had a Sense of Beauty" (2017) in The Paris Review
• "Monument" (2017) on Kadist
• "On Joanna Walsh's Worlds from the Word's End" (2017) on Publishers Weekly
• "Who Gets to Be a Mad Scientist?" (2018) in The Paris Review
• "On Frankenstein, A Monster of a Book" (2018) in The Paris Review
• "We Stigmatize Accents, But Language Belongs To Everyone" (2018) on PBS NewsHour
• "A Year In Reading" (2018) on The Millions
• "Tove Jansson's 'The Island'" (2019) in The Paris Review (translation)
• "Tove Jansson's 'Once, At A Park'" (2019) in The Paris Review (translation)
• "A Reading List On Loneliness" (2020) in Electric Literature
• "The Heart of Fiction" (2021) in The Yale Review
• "Contemporary Authors On Their Favorite New York City Novels" (2022) in The New York Times
• "Let Me Tell You a True Story" (2023) on BookPage