Immigrant of the Day: Gary Shteyngart (Former USSR)

 
Gary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. He spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia.

Shteyngart came to the United States in 1979. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Oberlin College, and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.

Shteyngart now lives in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University and Princeton University.

Shteyngart’s novels include The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2002), Absurdistan (2006), and Super Sad True Love Story (2010). Shteyngart’s work has received numerous awards.

KJ