* Winner of the inaugural DAG Prize for Literature* *Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* *A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee* *An NPR Best Book of the Year* *A BookPage Best Book of the Year* *A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020* *A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions* *A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn* “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel “Smart and heart-piercing…a story of displacement, erasure, identity, mythology, and the ability of literature to simultaneously express and transcend our lives.” —NPR.org The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds. “Hypnotizing.” — New York Times Book Review “Deftly conjured…thematically vital.” — Washington Post “Hypnotizing…Zapata reinterprets the extent and toll of exile on Earth, the gulf between universes of human experience.”— The New York Times Book Review “Deftly conjured…thematically vital…Zapata’s carefully crafted prose oscillates between matter-of-fact and lyrically poetic.”— The Washington Post “Smart and heart-piercing, Lost Book is a story of displacement, erasure, identity, mythology, and the ability of literature to simultaneously express and transcend our lives… Zapata illuminates the reality-inventing power of storytelling itself.” — NPR “[An] expansive, big-hearted and time-hopping debut…[Zapata’s] sensibility is one of great love for human beings and for life itself.”— Chicago Tribune “A mix of realist and speculative styles, this ambitious literary debut has earned Zapata comparisons to Jesmyn Ward.”— Boston Globe “[An] elegant and sweeping multigenerational, international story of lives marked by political violence and bound by the shared condition of exile.”— Salon “An absolutely stunning piece of work, and it is the best book you’ll read this year.”— Newcity Lit "As intriguing as the plot may sound upfront, it can’t speak to the otherworldly beauty of Michael Zapata’s writing. Don’t even bother trying to mark all the gorgeous passages that give you goosebumps, because there wouldn’t be much left unmarked. Zapata’s lyrical style has firm roots in Gabriel García Márquez’s work, with a boldness of delivery to the tune of Jorge Luis Borges...Zapata has treated us to a thrillingly mysterious storyline with a beautiful payoff."— BookPage STARRED review “Zapata spins an iridescent web of grief, loss, and memory….A lush, spellbinding tale.”— Booklist STARRED review “An illuminating work on trauma and the transience of human existence… A heady literary and genre-bending novel for fans of Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, and Adolfo Bioy Caseres.”— Library Journal STARRED review “Zapata's debut novel is a wonderful merging of adventure with thoughtful but urgent meditations on time, history, and surviving tragedy. The characters are richly drawn, and the prose is striking…. A luminous novel about the deep value of telling stories.”— Kirkus Reviews “Digging into themes of regeneration and rejuvenation, Zapata’s marriage of speculative and realist styles makes for a harrowing, immersive tale that will appeal to fans of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones .”— Publishers Weekly "Art-within-art."— The Millions “Exquisite… Zapata shows that the multiverses we crave are contained within each person, each event. Every new story we hear is a parallel universe in our own backyard, if only we cultivate the ability to listen.”— Little Village Magazine “A blending of speculative discussions, meta writing, surreal situations and almost-fantastical realism…. In the span of a very tight novel, [Zapata] bounces through parallel Earths with the mission of preserving various fictional histories.”— Jackson Free Press “This wonder of a novel speaks to the power of storytelling across generations.”— LitHub “A structurally bold, big-hearted novel about miracles both real and fictional.”— Vol. 1 Brooklyn “A globe-circling and generation-spanning debut that expands the notion of home and t