Pulitzer Winner Greer Mines Writers' Residency for New Novel

Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, has published Villa Coco, a novel set in Tuscany that draws directly from his experience directing a writers' residency in Italy. According to The Guardian's books coverage, the novel is framed as a "breezy confection of fish-out-of-water wit, insecurity and self-discovery set in an Italian paradise." The premise—a character who receives an invitation to work at a residency in Italy—mirrors Greer's own two-year tenure directing such a retreat.

The novel arrives at a moment when the international literary world has renewed interest in Italy as a setting for contemporary fiction. Writers' residencies in Tuscany and elsewhere in Italy have become established fixtures in the global literary economy, attracting American and European authors seeking time and space away from commercial pressures. Villa Coco, by grounding itself in that lived experience, offers readers an insider's view of how such retreats function and what they mean to the artists who pass through them.

Greer's previous novel Less won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018 and became an international bestseller, establishing him as a major voice in American literary fiction. Villa Coco represents his return to Italy as both subject and setting, suggesting that his residency experience left a lasting mark on his imagination. The Guardian's review frames the novel as lighter in tone than some of Greer's earlier work, emphasizing comedy and self-discovery over the existential weight that characterised Less.