Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award * A National Bestseller “An exceptional story collection.” —New York Times Book Review The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera—including a disillusioned NGO worker, the wife of a special operations officer, and an obssessed ornithologist—are caught, to both disastrous and hilarious effect, in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition. An intelligent and keenly observed collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.

With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story in Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition."--BOOK JACKET.

This debut collection from the man Malcolm Gladwell described as a genius took readers by storm. From the slums of Haiti to a golf course in Myanmar, and from the Colombian jungle to the diamond mines of Sierra Leone, Ben Fountain's impeccable and devastatingly funny stories describe a world in political and social upheaval, and the lives caught in the balance.

This award-winning satire shares a day in the life of a nineteen-year-old U.S. soldier home on leave from the Iraq War to take part in an NFL halftime show. A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at “the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal”—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America’s most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide Victory Tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the superstar pop group Destiny’s Child. Among the Bravos is the Silver Star–winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and Support Our Troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the Cowboys’ hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family—his worried sisters and broken father—and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy’s mind and died in his arms at Al-Ansakar. Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms—soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years . . . Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain’s reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation. Now a major motion picture directed by Ang Lee Praise for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk Finalist for the National Book Award Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Winner, Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction “Brilliantly done . . . grand, intimate, and joyous.” —New York Times Book Review “The Catch-22 of the Iraq War.” —Karl Marlantes

In a sweeping work of reportage set over the course of 2016, New York Times bestselling author Ben Fountain recounts a surreal year of politics and an exploration of the third American existential crisis Twice before in its history, the United States has been faced with a crisis so severe it was forced to reinvent itself in order to survive: first, the struggle over slavery, culminating in the Civil War, and the second, the Great Depression, which led to President Roosevelt’s New Deal and the establishment of America as a social-democratic state. In a sequence of essays that excavate the past while laying bare the political upheaval of 2016, Ben Fountain argues that the United States may be facing a third existential crisis, one that will require a “burning” of the old order as America attempts to remake itself. Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s southern strategy, to our weaponized new conception of American exceptionalism, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump. In an urgent and deeply incisive voice, Ben Fountain has fused history and the present day to paint a startling portrait of the state of our nation. Beautiful Country Burn Again is a searing indictment of how we came to this point, and where we may be headed.

October 9, 1967. World-renowned revolutionary Che Guevara is dead at 39. The charismatic Argentinian had been leading guerrilla fighters in Bolivia and was captured by the Bolivian army. A sergeant volunteered to execute the prisoner. Around the globe, reactions to the assassination were mixed. In Cuba, where Guevara had helped overthrow a brutally repressive dictatorship in 1959, more than a million people mourned openly. But elsewhere, many business leaders and government officials were relieved. To the rich and powerful, Guevara was dangerous. His anti-capitalist movement sought to strip big businesses of their land and power. He wanted to set up socialist systems to spread wealth and resources among ordinary workers--in Latin America and all around the world. How did the fiercely independent and internationally admired revolutionary leader end his life as a captive in a tiny Bolivian village? Why did he die a hunted man, without a fair trial, at the hands of a Bolivian soldier? And how did his story become a legend?--From publisher description.

Mexican novelist and historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II here captures the life and character of Che Guevara, the preeminent Latin-American revolutionary of the late twentieth century. The symbol of radical egalitarianism and the war against social injustice, Guevara was gunned down in the jungles of southeastern Bolivia in 1967, his death surrounded by questions that remain unanswered. In the years since he died, fascination with Che and his independent and pragmatic brand of Guerilla Marxism have become increasingly focused. Taibo, whose extensive contacts in Latin American political activism gives him unprecedented access to hitherto untapped sources, probes Che's life with a storyteller's pen and an historian's judgment. Delving into vast archives to which few researchers have entry, Taibo investigates the mystery and myth surrounding Che's life, careers, and ideals.