“When I was a half-starving New York writer (1995-2002), the Strand offered salvation in its 50% off aisles, cast-off reviewer copies that lined my first Ikea bookshelves, books with strange names like The Chocolate Bunny, or the Vanilla Rabbit, or something of the sort. The collection I’m offering does not include any titles named after small sweet animals, but there are tons of personal favorites, old dead Russians like Turgenev and Nabokov, contemporary masters like Edmund White and Margaret Atwood, and a stable of incredible young writers including Chang-rae Lee and Edwidge Danticatt. I will never forget the days of saving up two $20 bills to score a whole bagful of books from the Strand, my stomach filled with cheap hot dogs and a poor man’s version of pepto bismol, the rest of me dying to someday write a Chocolate Rabbit of my own."
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His most recent novel Super Sad True Love Story was an instant New York Times Bestseller and was named to over 40 "Best Books of the Year" lists including NPR's Fresh Air, the New York Times, Washington Post, and O Magazine.
His first novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was also named a New York Times Notable Book, and a best book of the year by The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly. His second novel, Absurdistan, was a national bestseller, and was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review and Time magazine, and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times. His novels have been translated into over 24 languages around the world, and his fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, GQ, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and many other publications. He lives in New York City and was named a Granta Best Young American Novelists and a New Yorker “Best Writer Under 40.”
