Tony Tulathimutte
“I pledged myself to idiocy in different ways.... Of course ‘stupid’ is a judgment you make on an idea that supposedly ‘shouldn’t work,’ but a lot of writing is about making it work anyway by finding the right voice or form. You need to believe that in principle anything can be pulled off and it’s just a matter of finding out how. ”
Tony Tulathimutte (TOO-lah-tim-OO-tee) is the author of the novel Rejection, which was long-listed for the 2024 National Book Award and named a New York Times Best Book of the Year, and the 2016 novel Private Citizens, hailed by New York Magazine as “the first great millennial novel.” He has received a Whiting Award and an O. Henry Award, and his writing appears in The Paris Review, n+1, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Playboy, and elsewhere.
Since 2017, Tony has run an independent writing program, CRIT, hosting small groups of emerging writers for twice-weekly workshops and craft lectures. He is Visiting Associate Professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop through Fall 2026.
“A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire.”