The Decameron Project

29 New Stories from the Pandemic

By: The New York Times

Narrated by: 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

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

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

©2020 The New York Times. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic 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." (AudioFile Magazine)

Powerful stories

I really enjoyed this compilation of stories! Thank you to The NY Times and these beautiful authors for sharing.