Witness

Description: 'Brinkley's sentences are daggers' Raven Leilani, author of Luster 'Extraordinary ... moving, compelling and virtuosic' Observer 'A triumph' Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness

An electric new collection of stories set in contemporary New York, from the award-winning author of A Lucky Man and National Book Award finalist, Jamel Brinkley.

What does it mean to take action? To bear witness? What does it cost?

These stories take us into the heart of contemporary New York City and its residents' lives. We meet children, grandmothers and even ghosts as they strive to connect, to stand up for, and to really see each other. Their relationships shape not only their own futures but those of their families and their city.

In its portraits of families and friendships, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in a generation, where strangers sometimes show kindness while those we trust-doctors, employers, siblings-too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches.

With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.

'Exhilarating and impactful ... Each story is a gift' New York Times

'A dazzling collection by a masterful storyteller' Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose

'Read everything this man writes, and regard the world anew' Justin Torres, author of We the Animals

'Jamel Brinkley is brilliant, the real thing, a revelation' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You

'These are stories of rare beauty and insight, that glitter with humour and hurt, written with lambent clarity and tenderness' David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights On

'There is all the involvedness and complexity of a novel in each story, which makes Witness so abundant and wise. A brilliant writer' Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter

'Read Witness and allow yourself the pleasure of seeing the world as Brinkley sees it' Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House

Review:

'Extraordinary ... Confirms Brinkley's place among the most moving, compelling and virtuosic practitioners of the short form' Observer

'Exhilarating ... Each story is a gift' New York Times

'An important new voice ... Taut and convincing' Guardian

'Brinkley's sentences are daggers. He writes about the shifting intimacies of community and love with wit and warmth' Raven Leilani, author of Luster

'Virtuosic, fine-tuned and thrillingly assured' Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness

'Each story in Witness brings a novel's worth of richness and complexity ... Dazzling' Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose

'Jamel Brinkley is brilliant, the real thing, a revelation' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You

'Stories of rare beauty and insight, that glitter with humour and hurt' David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights On

'Beautiful, original ... I will revisit this collection again and again' Rachel Connolly, author of The Lazy City

'One of the best story writers we have ... A book of psychological acuity, of graceful sentences, of devastation and heart' Justin Torres, author of We the Animals

'Read Witness and allow yourself the pleasure of seeing the world as Brinkley sees it' Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House

'There is all the involvedness and complexity of a novel in each story ... Brilliant' Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter

'Brinkley's voice is unflinching, his eye panoramic' Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes

'One of the finest young writers working today' Vulture

'One of the year's most anticipated works' NPR

'Brinkley's stories carry a rich veneer worthy of such exemplars of the form as Chekhov, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro ... A grand master of the short story' Kirkus

Author Biography:

Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. The title story from Witness was chosen by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a 2021 O. Henry Prize winner and the story 'Comfort' was longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award. He has also received the Rome Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories. He was raised in the Bronx and Brooklyn and currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.