Sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, aging with – or without – grace. Are those the forces that drive men? Or, for that matter, women?

In her stunning new collection of short stories, To Be a Man, award-winning author Nicole Krauss explores the often-tumultuous journeys of men as fathers, lovers, husbands, friends, children and seducers. As she travels the world through her male characters, she paints a vivid portrait of the tenacity of social expectations of maleness and what it means to be a woman among men.

Best known for her four novels, including Forest Dark and Great House, Nicole Krauss has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire and Harper’s. She is currently writer-in-residence at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University.