He has published four novels and one play, which are concerned with subjects including social atomization, music, political dysfunction, epistemology, ecology, and time.
"[1] Widely believed to be using a pseudonym, Dara has given no interviews and has issued no photographs, and has chosen to publish his recent novels in English through his own press, Aurora.
[8] In 1995, his first novel, The Lost Scrapbook, won the 12th Annual FC2 Illinois State University National Fiction Competition judged by William T.
"[12] Green writes that: "In the audacity of [their] invention...Dara’s novels are arguably the most radically disruptive books in American fiction since, say, Gilbert Sorrentino in a work like Mulligan Stew (1979).
In an indirect reply to a query from the critic Tom LeClair—in which he confirmed that he uses a pseudonym—Dara denied having read either The Recognitions or J R.[14] In 2014, the critic Steven Moore followed up on this question: "Asked about Gaddis’s possible influence, Dara told me that while working on The Lost Scrapbook he heard that J R was a novel in dialogue and checked it out from The American Library in Paris: ‘Took the novel home, plunked it open, tapped it shut — didn’t want the influence’ (email January 19, 2014).”[15] The first edition of The Lost Scrapbook was published in 1995 by Fiction Collective Two, or FC2, which was then based at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois.
The manuscript was originally brought to the publisher's attention by novelist Richard Powers, who described how he received it: “Several kilos of transatlantic, boat-rate typescript arrived on my stoop without prior warning of contents, and I’ve been grateful ever since.
[23] El Plural named it one of the most solid and imaginative novels of the year ("una de las novelas más sólidas e imaginativas del año).