Tales of Accidental Genius

A master storyteller’s vision reawakens us to the human experience in this diverse, haunting, and unexpectedly humorous new collection of short fiction from Simon Van Booy - his first since Love Begins in Winter, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.



In his first book of short stories since Love Begins in Winter, bestselling author Simon Van Booy offers a collection of stories highlighting how human genius can emerge through acts of compassion. Through characters including an eccentric film director, an aging Cockney bodyguard, the teenage child of Nigerian immigrants, a divorced amateur magician from New Jersey, and a Beijing street vendor who becomes an overnight billionaire, Tales of Accidental Genius contemplates individuals from different cultures and races—rich and poor, young and old—and reveals how faith and yearning for connection help us transcend loneliness, fear, and misfortune.