A short life of the author
Sergio De La Pava (b. 1971) was born in 1971 in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Colombian parents. He is a public defender in New York City. He studied at Columbia Law School.
Life and Career
A Naked Singularity (2008, self-published; 2012, University of Chicago Press) — about Casi, a young public defender in Manhattan who has never lost a case, and whose moral certainty begins to crack under the weight of the criminal justice system — is 700 pages of maximalist fiction that channels DeLillo, Gaddis, and David Foster Wallace while remaining grounded in the daily reality of criminal courts. It won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction.
Personae (2013) — about a public defender investigating the case of a catatonic prisoner — was shorter and more focused. Lost Empress (2018) — about football, prison, and New Jersey — was his most recent novel. Every Arc Bends Its Radian (2023) continued his project.
De La Pava’s fiction draws directly on his experience as a public defender — the moral weight of representing people the system has abandoned.
Key Works
- A Naked Singularity (2008/2012)
- Personae (2013)
- Lost Empress (2018)
Collecting De La Pava
The self-published first edition of A Naked Singularity (2008, Xlibris) is scarce and brings $50–$200.