American Dystopia

Hanya Yanagihara ’95 shook up the literary world in 2015, when her second novel, A Little Life, became a surprise bestseller.

It won the Kirkus Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Yanagihara’s long-awaited follow-up, To Paradise, finally arrives in January. The novel is set in 1893, 1993, and 2093 America and is about “lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia,” according to the publisher. Early reviews are enthusiastic, with Kirkus, in a starred review, calling it “gigantic, strange, exquisite, terrifying, and replete with mystery.”

TO PARADISE: A NOVEL
By Hanya Yanagihara ’95
Doubleday, January 2022

This story appears as part of the Smithies Create column in the Winter 2022 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.