Wendy Lesser is a critic, novelist, and editor based in Berkeley, California. She is the founding editor of the literary magazine the Threepenny Review. It prints fiction, poetry, and criticism by the likes of Wendell Berry, Javier Marias, and Robert Pinsky. Wendy Lesser’s reviews and essays have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, and she is the author of nine books, including the novel The Pagoda in the Garden, published by Other Press in 2005, and her latest nonfiction book, Music for Silenced Voices (Yale, 2011). Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment from the Humanities, and New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, as well as the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.