Author(s): Julius Taranto

Novel | Humour & Satire | USA

Helen, a graduate student on a quest to save the planet, is one of the best minds of her generation. But when her irreplaceable advisor’s student sex scandal is exposed, she must choose whether to give up on her work or accompany him to RIP, a research institute which grants safe harbour to the disgraced and the deplorable.

As Helen settles into life at the institute alongside her partner Hew, she develops a crush on an older novelist, while he is drawn to an increasingly violent protest movement. As the rift between them deepens, they both face major – and potentially world-altering – choices.

Both hilarious and thought-provoking, How I Won A Nobel Prize approaches our moral confusion in a genuine and fresh way, examining the price we’re willing to pay for progress and what it means, in the end, to be a good person.

Review: Outstanding * The Wall Street Journal *
Razor sharp . . . bracingly clever . . . a viciously funny page-turner with plenty of surprises up its sleeve * Vogue *
A gleefully irreverent satire of so-called cancel culture, virtue signaling, and early-21st-century hypocrisy. * The Atlantic *
Witty and provocative . . . Taranto understands the appeal of bad-man geniuses, and he understands their dangers, too. -- Vox, 'Best Books of 2023'
Very funny. Very good -- B.J. Novak
With How I Won A Nobel Prize Julius Taranto achieves the near-impossible: a literary comedy about cancel culture that is neither priggish nor self-satisfiedly transgressive, less about culture wars than the neverending battle of being human. A novel of ideas in the tradition of Norman Rush's Mating, How I Won A Nobel Prize is one of the best new novels I've read in years. -- Tara Isabella Burton, author of Social Creature
A wildly original debut . . . Can a high-powered male lawyer write a propulsive, smart, funny novel about science, cancel culture, and #MeToo with a female protagonist? Absolutely. It's exactly what Julius Taranto has done in his debut, How I Won A Nobel Prize. * Publishers Weekly *
A high-wire act, balancing savvy political satire with brilliant character development and prose that sings and guffaws with nuance * Shelf Awareness *
Julius Taranto does an incredible job crafting an ambitious and nuanced narrative abut "cancel culture" that'll keep you laughing from start to finish. * Coveteur *

Author Biography: Julius Taranto's fiction has appeared in Phoebe, The Fiddleback, Palimpsest, and Connu. His essay "On Outgrowing David Foster Wallace," in the Los Angeles Review of Books, was one of its most-read articles of the year. He has also written for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Foreign Affairs, and Lawfare. He is an editorial consultant for McNally Editions, the McNally Jackson paperback line, and in his other career is an antitrust lawyer.