Since the publication of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Englander has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.[7] Four of his short stories have appeared in editions of The Best American Short Stories: "The Gilgul of Park Avenue" appeared in the 2000 edition, with guest editor E.L. Doctorow, "How We Avenged the Blums" appeared in the 2006 edition, guest edited by Ann Patchett, "Free Fruit for Young Widows" appeared in the 2011 edition, guest edited by Geraldine Brooks, and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank" appeared in the 2012 edition, guest edited by Tom Perrotta. Another story in the collection, "The Twenty-Seventh Man," debuted as a play in November, 2012,[8] the subject of a radio program featuring audio of a reading by actor Michael Stuhlbarg.[9]
The Ministry of Special Cases, Englander's follow-up to his debut collection, was released on April 24, 2007. The novel is set in 1976 in Buenos Aires during Argentina's "Dirty War" and has been described as "an impeccably paced, historically accurate novel which is alternatively side-splitting and frighteningly macabre."[10] Englander has said of his novel: "... I resisted calling it a political book, in that it wasn’t my intent—that is, I had no corrupting (as I’d see it) preconceived position that I was pushing. There’s a lot of politics in my novel, because it’s central to the world of that novel."[11]
