Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College. He is the author of seven novels including Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger. He has also written two short story collections, a novella and a collection of essays, and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine. His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney's, and many other periodicals. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.