Hernan Diaz: A Pulitzer-Winning Voice, Now Writing From Brooklyn
Updated: Oct 7
A note from our founder
This tribute belongs to a writer whose life has crossed more borders than most: Buenos Aires, Sweden, Argentina again, London, and finally New York, where he has made his home in Brooklyn. Hernan Diaz's fiction is obsessed with the stories nations tell about themselves, and it feels fitting that a writer so interested in the gap between myth and truth would end up in a borough with a mythology all its own.
From Buenos Aires to Brooklyn
Hernan Diaz was born in 1973 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shortly after his birth, his family fled the Argentine military dictatorship and relocated to Sweden, where he spent much of his childhood. He later returned to Argentina to complete his bachelor's degree in literature, then moved to London, and eventually to New York City, where he earned his PhD in Comparative Literature at New York University. That long, winding path across continents and languages left its mark on a writer who would go on to build a career out of examining how identity and history get constructed, and who now lives in Brooklyn.
Deconstructing the American Myth
Diaz is widely celebrated for his formal brilliance and his particular skill at taking apart the foundational stories America tells about itself, from the rugged individualism of the Western frontier to the intoxicating illusions of high-stakes capitalism. His fiction doesn't just critique these myths from the outside. It builds them convincingly enough to earn the reader's trust, then carefully shows the seams.
In the Distance
Diaz's debut novel, In the Distance (2017), was a dark horse success and an unusual entry into the Western genre. The book follows Håkan, a young Swedish immigrant who travels on foot across a lawless, mid-19th-century America against the flow of the gold rush, searching for his lost brother. It became a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, a striking debut by any measure.
Trust and the Pulitzer Prize
His sophomore novel, Trust (2022), cemented his status as a major literary figure. A masterfully constructed puzzle-box of a book, it is told through four distinct sections, a novel-within-a-novel, an unfinished manuscript, a memoir, and a diary, to explore wealth, power, and how truth gets shaped by whoever is wealthy enough to control the narrative. Trust won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.
Academic Life and Recognition
Diaz's honors include a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He serves as associate director of the Hispanic Institute for Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University, continuing the scholarly work that has run alongside his fiction throughout his career. He lives in Brooklyn today, the latest stop for a writer whose life has always been defined by movement.
Selected Bibliography
Fiction
In the Distance (2017) — A brilliant, atmospheric anti-Western following Håkan, a young Swedish immigrant who travels on foot across a lawless, mid-19th-century America against the flow of the gold rush, searching for his lost brother.
Trust (2022) — Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A masterfully constructed, puzzle-box novel set in 1920s and '30s Wall Street, told through four different "books" to explore wealth, power, and how truth is manipulated by the wealthy.
Non-Fiction & Literary Criticism
Borges, Past and Future (2012) — An analytical, academic study exploring the concept of literary legacy, overlapping timelines, and the immense cultural impact of Argentine master Jorge Luis Borges.
READ DIAZ
Start with Trust. It's the book that won Diaz the Pulitzer, and it shows exactly why he's regarded as one of the most formally inventive novelists writing today. It's also a fitting introduction to a writer who has spent his life examining borders and belonging, and who now calls Brooklyn home. Get the book.
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