"Property" is about financier Benjamin Rask and his wife Helen. During the 1920s, Benjamin's assets rise to astronomical sums. When the American stock market crashes in 1929, he is the one who does best – but perhaps also the one behind everything. Next to him is his wife whose involvement in her husband's empire remains unclear.
"It's a book about the myths that surround great fortunes and how certain voices, especially women's voices, have been silenced to create these very myths," says author Hernán Díaz.
Mixing genres
The book is about money and the American dream, but also about those who are on the margins of the financial industry.
"The reason I wanted to write a book about money is because it's such a force in our lives. It's something that shapes our lives every day, almost every minute of it. And yet money is something we don't talk about," says Hernán Díaz.
Divided into four different parts and genres, the turbulent years on Wall Street are depicted. There is a novella, a draft, a memoir and a diary. Together, the different stories create a conscious puzzle, says Díaz.
"My hope was to turn the reader into a kind of text detective. But it's also a deliberate puzzle where the pieces don't quite fit.
Grew up in Sweden
Hernán Díaz was born in 1973 in Argentina, but grew up partly in Stockholm. He has lived in New York for twenty-five years, but his time from Sweden lingers and has influenced his writing.
"My first memories are from Stockholm. I moved here when I was two and I went to school here. My experience from Sweden is very important to me, he says and continues:
"I don't know if I would have written in English if I hadn't spent these important years in Sweden first.
In the clip above you hear more about the author Hernán Díaz.