Sigrid Nunez won the 2018 National Book Award for The Friend, a moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the transcendent bond between a woman and her dog. The novel became an instant New York Times bestseller and made Nunez an overnight literary sensation more than two decades after she published her debut novel.

When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

Sigrid Nunez is the author of 7 novels including The Last of Her Kind, A Feather on the Breath of God, and For Rouenna, as well as Sempre Susan, a vibrant portrait of Susan Sontag and “a loving memoir, full of arresting details and an occasional spirited defense of her mentor” by The Los Angeles Times. In addition to the National Book Award for her New York Times-bestselling novel The Friend, she is the recipient of many awards including a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize in Literature, and a Berlin Prize Fellowship.