George Saunders will make his return to fiction later this year.
The celebrated author, known for books including Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation, will publish the story collection Liberation Day in the fall, Random House said in a news release.
“With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality,” the publisher says.
Saunders was shortlisted for the National Book Award and won the Story Prize for his last story collection, Tenth of December, and his 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo won the Booker Prize. His most recent work, the nonfiction book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, was published last year.
“I’ve found these last few years riveting and strangely clarifying,” Saunders said in a statement. “Everything that’s always been happening to people on earth now seems to be happening…faster. I tried to get some of that percussive energy into Liberation Day, as well as some of the joy of being alive in such a strange, transitional, dangerous moment.”
Liberation Day is slated for publication on Oct. 18.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
