Joshua Ferris was born in Illinois in 1974. He is the author of Then We Came to the End (2007), which was nominated for the National Book Award and longlisted for the GuardianFirst Book Award, The Unnamed and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. In 2010 he was selected for the New Yorker's prestigious '20 under 40' list. He lives in upstate New York.