A master storyteller’s vision reawakens us to the human experience in this diverse, haunting, and unexpectedly humorous new collection of short fiction from Simon Van Booy --- his first since LOVE BEGINS IN WINTER, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

“She believed it was a gift to never truly know the self. We are not who we think we are, nor how others see us. Long before death, we die a thousand times at the hands of a definition.”

In his first book of short stories since LOVE BEGINS IN WINTER, for which he won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award), bestselling author Simon Van Booy offers a collection of stories highlighting how human genius can emerge through acts of compassion. Through characters including an eccentric film director, an aging Cockney bodyguard, the teenage child of Nigerian immigrants, a divorced amateur magician from New Jersey, and a Beijing street vendor who becomes an overnight billionaire, TALES OF ACCIDENTAL GENIUS contemplates individuals from different cultures, races --- rich and poor, young and old --- and reveals how faith and yearning for connection helps us all transcend darkness of fear and misfortune.