Fortune smiles is a collection of six brilliantly crafted and imaginative stories little wonder it is the winner of the 2015 national book award for fiction and the 2016 winner of the story prize the stories take the reader to diverse locales palo alto louisiana and los angeles in the us east germany and south korea but they all . Each of these stories plants a small bomb in the readers head life after reading fortune smiles is a series of small explosions in which the reader perhaps unwillingly recognizes . Judges citation there is poetry and heartbreak on every page of adam johnsons extraordinary story collection fortune smiles johnson is a virtuoso writing with the same sensitivity and insight whether his setting is north korea or new orleans palo alto or some other imaginary world as flawed and secretive as our own. Fortune smiles stories about the author subtly surreal darkly comic both hilarious and heartbreaking fortune smiles is a major collection of stories that gives voice to the perspectives we dont often hear while offering something rare in fiction a new way of looking at the world