Michael Chabon, author of this year's One Book, One Chicago selection, was born in 1963 in Washington, D.C., and raised in Columbia, Maryland. He studied at Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh and received a master of fine arts in creative writing at U.C. Irvine. He has spent the past two decades in California, with occasional stays in Washington state, Florida and New York state. Since 1997, he has lived in Berkeley.
Chabon’s first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was originally written for his master’s thesis at U.C. Irvine and became a New York Times bestseller. His next novel, Wonder Boys (1995), also a bestseller, was made into a critically acclaimed film featuring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Chabon’s third novel, was published by Random House in 2000 and received widespread praise. The book was selected by the American Library Association as one of the Notable Books of 2001 and was a finalist for several awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It won the New York Society Library Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Award Gold Medal and the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Chabon is also the author of two short story collections, A Model World and Other Stories (1991) and Werewolves in Their Youth (1999). His first young adult novel, Summerland (2002), won the 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. He has written articles and essays, a number of screenplays including John Carter (2012), and teleplays (as well as sharing story credit for Spider-man 2), and edited The Best American Short Stories 2005. Chabon’s story "Son of the Wolfman" was chosen for the 1999 O. Henry collection and for a National Magazine Award. Chabon’s novella The Final Solution, originally published in The Paris Review (2003) and later published in book form (2004), was awarded a 2005 National Jewish Book Award and the 2003 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, another highly acclaimed Chabon novel, was published in 2007. This hardboiled detective novel is set in an alternate world where Israel failed to be born and millions of European Jewish refugees took shelter in Alaska, creating a miniature American Yiddishland. It became a New York Times bestseller immediately upon publication, winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2007 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2008, and was nominated for an Edgar Award.
In November 2007, his short swashbuckling adventure novel Gentlemen of the Road, serialized in 15 chapters in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, was published by Del Rey. His collection of essays titled Maps and Legends was published by McSweeney’s in 2008. His latest collection of essays is titled Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures & Regrets of a Husband, Father, & Son (2009). His book for children, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, was illustrated by Jake Parker and published in 2011. His most recent novel is Telegraph Avenue (2012).
Sources
- “Michael Chabon.” Contemporary Authors Online. Gale, 2013.
- Steven Barclay Agency.
Content last updated: April 30, 2015
