{"id":166600,"date":"2026-10-08T06:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=166600"},"modified":"2026-10-07T23:54:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:54:54","slug":"pulitzer-prize-winning-author-hernan-diaz-in-conversation-with-snowden-wright-for-ply-tuesday-oct-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/pulitzer-prize-winning-author-hernan-diaz-in-conversation-with-snowden-wright-for-ply-tuesday-oct-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Hernan Diaz in conversation with Snowden Wright for “Ply” Tuesday, Oct. 13"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Diaz is juggling an ambitious plot and thorny philosophical questions, yet the novel remains compulsively readable, carried along by intricate worldbuilding and strangely gorgeous evocations of ruin. . . . By the novel\u2019s end you will believe, like our heroine, \u2018that the cracks and fissures in every building and street [are] the sign of something wonderful hatching.<\/em>‘<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Oprah Daily\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Square Books<\/strong> is honored to welcome the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz<\/strong> for his first ever visit to Oxford. He will be in conversation with Mississippi author Snowden Wright<\/strong> for his new novel Ply<\/strong><\/em> on Tuesday, October 13<\/strong> at 6 pm at Off Square Books<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hernan Diaz is widely recognized as one of America\u2019s foremost contemporary fiction writers. Ply<\/em> is his third novel, and his first since winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for Trust.<\/em> That novel, described by the New York Times as \u201cintricate, cunning, and consistently surprising\u201d, also won the Kirkus Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It was also named a best book of the year by over 30 publications and Barack Obama, and a best book of the 21st century by the New York Times<\/em>. His debut novel, In the\u00a0Distance,<\/em> was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2018, and won multiple awards including the Saroyan International Prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ply<\/em>, released on September 29, questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply<\/em> poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love. It was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by over 30 outlets, including The Chicago Tribune<\/em>, Time,<\/em> CBS and NPR. Since its release it has received widespread critical acclaim, including from The Boston Globe<\/em> which described it as a \u201ctestament to the surpassing importance of the human voice, artistic fecundity, improvisation, and ingenuity\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diaz is juggling an ambitious plot and thorny philosophical questions, yet the novel remains compulsively readable, carried along<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":166601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35027],"tags":[35860,5,13759,4,35861,5836,602,3,753],"class_list":["post-166600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upcoming-events","tag-hernan-diaz","tag-mississippi","tag-off-square-books-2","tag-oxford","tag-ply","tag-pulitzer","tag-square-books","tag-the-local-voice","tag-tlv"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1013-Hernan-Diaz-for-Ply.png?fit=900%2C900&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166602,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166600\/revisions\/166602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}