NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER BY VOGUE, HARPER’S BAZAAR, LA TIMES AND BOSTON GLOBE – AND ONE OF THE GUARDIAN’S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS FOR 2026
The first ever collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend
‘Wryly funny and slyly provocative’ DAILY MAIL
‘Sigrid Nunez creates whole lives in fewer than 20 pages’ JOHN SELF, THE TIMES
‘Once you discover Sigrid Nunez, you don’t look back’ ANNE ENRIGHT
It Will Come Back to You takes in thirteen stories – never before collected together – from a career spanning three decades, which has seen Nunez become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices. Moving from an inappropriate teenage crush to a therapist’s second chance at love, in this collection Nunez maintains her irrepressible humour, bite, and insight, while exploring the philosophical questions we have come to expect from her writing.
‘Among the most interesting writers of our generation’ INDEPENDENT
‘It Will Come Back to You should make you want to imbibe every word Nunez has ever written’ TLS
‘A strange, perceptive and unsettling look at the lives of ordinary people’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘One of American fiction’s most crisp and realized voices. Like the food in a good restaurant, her prose is excellent but unfussy’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Nunez injects these stories with a deep tenderness and a wry sense of humor, all the while challenging our conceptions of what it means to live an ordinary life’ HARPERS BAZAAR, ‘Best Summer Books 2026’
‘Nunez [has] a no-nonsense honesty, a matchless intelligence, an unswerving empathy, and a breathtaking intimacy of voice’ JENNY MUSTARD
‘One of the great writers of our time . . . Reading [Nunez’s] work feels like having lunch with your smartest, wisest, most empathetic friend’ LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘The stories show [Nunez’s] gift for turning apparently ordinary lives into something stranger, funnier and more searching than they first appear’ iPAPER, ‘The best new books to read in July 2026′
‘Long live Sigrid Nunez’ LAURA MARLING
‘Nunez [has] a no-nonsense honesty, a matchless intelligence, an unswerving empathy, and a breathtaking intimacy of voice’ JENNY MUSTARD
‘One of the great writers of our time . . . Reading [Nunez’s] work feels like having lunch with your smartest, wisest, most empathetic friend’ LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘A treat’ OPRAH DAILY, ‘Best Books of the Summer 2026’
‘There are two kinds of people in the world, people who haven’t read Sigrid Nunez, and people who love Sigrid Nunez’ CLAIRE KOHDA
‘Wonderful . . . Her uncertain protagonists in an uncertain world are the perfect literary creations: vexed in their own lives but delightful to encounter’ BIDISHA
The first ever collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend
‘Wryly funny and slyly provocative’ DAILY MAIL
‘Sigrid Nunez creates whole lives in fewer than 20 pages’ JOHN SELF, THE TIMES
‘Once you discover Sigrid Nunez, you don’t look back’ ANNE ENRIGHT
It Will Come Back to You takes in thirteen stories – never before collected together – from a career spanning three decades, which has seen Nunez become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices. Moving from an inappropriate teenage crush to a therapist’s second chance at love, in this collection Nunez maintains her irrepressible humour, bite, and insight, while exploring the philosophical questions we have come to expect from her writing.
‘Among the most interesting writers of our generation’ INDEPENDENT
‘It Will Come Back to You should make you want to imbibe every word Nunez has ever written’ TLS
‘A strange, perceptive and unsettling look at the lives of ordinary people’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘One of American fiction’s most crisp and realized voices. Like the food in a good restaurant, her prose is excellent but unfussy’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Nunez injects these stories with a deep tenderness and a wry sense of humor, all the while challenging our conceptions of what it means to live an ordinary life’ HARPERS BAZAAR, ‘Best Summer Books 2026’
‘Nunez [has] a no-nonsense honesty, a matchless intelligence, an unswerving empathy, and a breathtaking intimacy of voice’ JENNY MUSTARD
‘One of the great writers of our time . . . Reading [Nunez’s] work feels like having lunch with your smartest, wisest, most empathetic friend’ LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘The stories show [Nunez’s] gift for turning apparently ordinary lives into something stranger, funnier and more searching than they first appear’ iPAPER, ‘The best new books to read in July 2026′
‘Long live Sigrid Nunez’ LAURA MARLING
‘Nunez [has] a no-nonsense honesty, a matchless intelligence, an unswerving empathy, and a breathtaking intimacy of voice’ JENNY MUSTARD
‘One of the great writers of our time . . . Reading [Nunez’s] work feels like having lunch with your smartest, wisest, most empathetic friend’ LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘A treat’ OPRAH DAILY, ‘Best Books of the Summer 2026’
‘There are two kinds of people in the world, people who haven’t read Sigrid Nunez, and people who love Sigrid Nunez’ CLAIRE KOHDA
‘Wonderful . . . Her uncertain protagonists in an uncertain world are the perfect literary creations: vexed in their own lives but delightful to encounter’ BIDISHA
Reviews
a strange, perceptive and unsettling look at the lives of ordinary people . . . Her stories are lucid and familiar . . . very funny and very strange . . . Her fiction is at its best when it has teeth . . . dwells in discomfort and makes you feel something
There are two kinds of people in the world, people who haven't read Sigrid Nunez, and people who love Sigrid Nunez'
A dazzling collection ... Each of these stories, even the most ostensibly wispy, reverberates long after it ends
Masterful ... Nunez's sharp wit remains a steady presence across the collection, roaming freely from one heavy subject to the next without ever slipping into sentimentality. It's a treasure trove
Nunez is a strong writer at every level, but she's especially good at closings that nail their points in place, from the everyday to the sublime ... Nunez's stories make a welcome addition to an already much esteemed body of work
A rare pleasure . . . Nunez runs the gamut of human emotion in this kaleidoscopic, boundless collection . . . unforgettable . . . These stories, steeped in realism but measured by hopefulness, are worthy equals to Nunez's award-winning prose
Wryly funny and slyly provocative, she excels at quick sketches of her characters
Typical of Nunez's astonishing precision as a writer, of which this collection provides a dazzling display
A treat ... each story showing how Nunez can turn the everyday into something quietly devastating, then slip in a line that makes you laugh despite yourself. Expect grief, art, love, mortality, and the strange intimacy of ordinary conversation-now in perfectly tart, bite-size form
These bitesized stories send shivers down the spine . . . Sigrid Nunez creates whole lives in fewer than 20 pages
This is a wonderful collection and brilliant showcase for Sigrid Nunez's many talents. She excels in the intriguing start, the curious setting and the mischievous end. Her uncertain protagonists in an uncertain world are the perfect literary creations: vexed in their own lives but delightful to encounter
This collection of her short stories will make you want to hunt out all the novels this wonderful American author has written over the past three decades. For now, treat yourself to 13 of her good-humoured, refreshingly honest tales
One of the great writers of our time ... With remarkable tenderness, Nunez navigates themes of aging, death and mental illness. Reading her work feels like having lunch with your smartest, wisest, most empathetic friend
Typical of Nunez's astonishing precision as a writer, of which this collection provides a dazzling display
With It Will Come Back to You, Nunez wonderfully accomplishes in her stories what we have come to expect of her from her marvellous novels: a no-nonsense honesty, a matchless intelligence, an unswerving empathy, and a breathtaking intimacy of voice. Her prose manages at once to be absolutely singular, yet so easy to love. Every page is a joy, not a single sentence is wasted. Nunez has long since established herself as one of my favourite authors
It Will Come Back to You should make you want to imbibe every word Nunez has ever written
Sigrid Nunez is one of American fiction's most crisp and realized voices. Like the food in a good restaurant, her prose is excellent but unfussy
Nunez injects these stories with a deep tenderness and a wry sense of humor, all the while challenging our conceptions of what it means to live an ordinary life
The stories show Nunez's gift for turning apparently ordinary lives into something stranger, funnier and more searching than they first appear
Nunez continues to return to the possiblity that experience acquires shape only when it is turned into a narrative, but warns that the resulting shape may be misleading . . . Nunez embeds questions about narrative in reflective, conversational accounts of ordinary experience