David Ebershoff is an American-born writer, editor, and teacher.

Biography

Born in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

, he is a graduate of Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 and the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, and studied at Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

 in Tokyo.

He published his first novel, The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is a novel by American writer David Ebershoff.-Summary:The novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.-Awards:...

, in 2000. It is based on the life of Lili Elbe

Lili Elbe

Lili Elbe was an Intersex person and one of the first identifiable recipients of male to female sex reassignment surgery. Elbe was born as a male in Denmark. Born as Einar Mogens Wegener, she identified as male for most of her life and was a successful artist with that name...

, the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery

Sex reassignment surgery

Sex reassignment surgery is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble...

. The novel won the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...

. It was also a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award and an American Library Association Award and was a New York Times Notable book. It is being developed into a feature film starring Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

, who calls it "a beautiful love story.".

Ebershoff published his first collection of short stories, The Rose City, in 2001. It won the Ferro-Grumley Award, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times.

His second novel, Pasadena, was published in 2002 and was a New York Times bestseller. His fiction has been translated into a eighteen languages and published around the world to critical acclaim. In 2009, True West magazine, citing his West Coast heritage and interests, named him the Best Western Fiction Writer in the United States.

His third novel, The 19th Wife

The 19th wife

The 19th Wife is the international bestselling novel by David Ebershoff. Inspired by the life of Ann Eliza Young, the novel intertwines a historical narrative with a modern-day murder mystery. A television movie adaptation aired on Lifetime on September 13, 2010, starring Matt Czuchry, Patricia...

, published in 2009, was an international bestseller, selling 750,000 copies around the world. The novel is about one of Brigham Young's plural wives, Ann Eliza Young

Ann Eliza Young

Ann Eliza Young also known as Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning was one of Brigham Young's fifty-five wives and later a critic of polygamy...

, as well as polygamy in the United States today. Publishers Weekly called it "an exquisite tour-de-force" and Kirkus Reviews said it was "reminiscent of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose in scope and ambition", while the Los Angeles Times praised it by saying "it does that thing all good novels do: it entertains us." In 2009, British television talk show hosts Richard and Judy chose The 19th Wife for their on-air book club, making the book a #1 bestseller in the UK. In 2010, the book was made into a television movie of the same name

The 19th Wife (film)

The 19th Wife is a 2010 Lifetime television film and adaptation of David Ebershoff's novel of the same name.-Plot:Amidst a Southern Utah Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints communuity, BeckyLyn is accused of murdering her polygamist husband...

 starring Matt Czuchry, Patricia Wettig

Patricia Wettig

Patricia Wettig is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for her roles in the television series Thirtysomething, Prison Break and Brothers & Sisters...

, and Chyler Leigh

Chyler Leigh

Chyler Leigh is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Dr. Lexie Grey on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. She also portrayed Janey Briggs in Not Another Teen Movie.-Early life:...

. The novel was nominated for the Ferro-Grumley Award and the Utah Book Award and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

Ebershoff is editor-at-large at Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

, where he edits a wide range of writers including novelists David Mitchell

David Mitchell (author)

David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.- Biography :...

, Charles Bock

Charles Bock

Charles Bock is an American writer whose debut 2008 novel Beautiful Children was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2008, and won the 2009 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

, Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.-Life:...

, Stefan Merrill Block

Stefan Merrill Block

-Biography:Stefan Merrill Block was born in Texas and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He has written two novels: The Story of Forgetting and The Storm at the Door.-References:...

, John Burnham Schwartz, poet Billy Collins

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...

, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,...

, journalists Azadeh Moaveni

Azadeh Moaveni

- Education :Moaveni grew up in San Jose, California, and studied politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She won a Fulbright Fellowship to Egypt, and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo.- Career :...

 and Sonia Nazario

Sonia Nazario

Sonia Nazario has written about social issues for more than two decades, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She holds the distinctions of winning the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and of being the youngest writer to be hired by the Wall Street Journal.She...

, historian Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas , is a British historian and life peer.Hugh Thomas may also refer to:* Hugh Thomas , American choral conductor, pianist and educator* Hugh Thomas , Australian rules football coach...

, actor Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...

, and bestselling presidential scholar Ronald C. White, Jr.. Ebershoff was Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...

's editor on her final two books and was Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

's editor for the last five years of his life. Working with Truman Capote's estate, he oversees the Capote publications for Random House, and was the editor of The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, Summer Crossing, and Portraits and Observations. He was formerly the publishing director of Random House's classics imprint, the Modern Library

Modern Library

The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...

. He also writes for Conde Nast Traveler.

Ebershoff has taught writing at NYU and Princeton, and currently teaches literature in the MFA program at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He lives in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

External links

• Official website
• The 19th Wife webpage