Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad, Russia, in 1972, and immigrated to the United States seven years later. He is the author of the novels Absurdistan (Random House, 2006) and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (Riverhead Books, 2002). Absurdistan was named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review and TIME magazine, as well as Book of the Year by the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Chicago Tribune. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, and mention as a New York Times Notable Book. Shteyngart’s fiction and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Esquire, GQ, New York Review of Books, and New York Times Magazine, among other publications. Shteyngart was selected as one of the twenty best young American novelists by Granta.