Mischa Berlinski’s first two books were richly inventive affairs, yet within their fictionality could be discerned the impress of facts — sights seen, stories acquired, local color absorbed. Fieldwork, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award, was narrated by an American reporter named Mischa Berlinski, who drew on his creator’s time working in Thailand and researching a hill tribe. The narrator of Peacekeeping (2016), about United Nations employees in Haiti, was a nameless novelist not dissimilar to Berlinski, who lived in the country for some years with his U.N. lawyer wife.