Hernan Diaz follows Trust with far-future Ply
Hernan Diaz has followed his Pulitzer Prize winner Trust with Ply, a speculative epic set in a ruined city centuries from now.
The Guardian published its review on 14 October 2026 The Guardian. It identifies Ply as Diaz's latest book after Trust. That framing puts the new novel directly in the shadow of the prize.
Diaz won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, the annual US award for distinguished American fiction, for Trust. Trust was published by the US house Riverhead Books. Diaz had earlier been a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for In the Distance, his debut novel.
Ply stays with Riverhead. The book is listed for 29 September, and its US publisher describes it as combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama and scientific thriller Penguin Random House. Diaz, described by that publisher as a New York Times bestselling author, meaning an author who has appeared on its influential US sales chart, lives in New York.
The Guardian describes a decaying city suggestive of New York City, several centuries in the future. Water is controlled by a company called Flow. Electricity is controlled by a company called Tensor. A private security firm called CTS holds a monopoly, meaning sole control, over monitoring and patrolling the streets.
The narrator is unnamed. He is a pincher, the novel's term for someone who steals electricity from the grid. The review compares the rewilded, waterlogged city to J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World. Another figure, Pola, is a Heraclitus-quoting scientist living in the basement of what is probably the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The verdict from the reviewer is spare. Ply is called a very dry biscuit, with lots of exposition but little narrative energy. For readers new to Diaz, exposition here means background explanation rather than propulsive plot.
The book has had a full public rollout. NPR published a story on Ply on 4 October 2026 NPR. Diaz was scheduled to launch Ply in Brooklyn in conversation with Jennifer Egan on 29 September 2026, and in a separate event in conversation with Heather Parry. He also holds a PhD from NYU and is the author of Borges, between History and Eternity.
