John Wray was born in Washington, DC in 1971 and raised in Buffalo, New York. His father is American and his mother is Austrian, and he himself is a citizen of both countries. His first novel, The Right Hand of Sleep (Vintage UK/Knopf), was published in 2001 and won a Whiting Writers' Award. His second, Canaan’s Tongue, is published by Chatto & Windus in the UK and by Vintage in the US. 'In the Tunnel' is taken from his latest novel, Lowboy, which will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2008. At present he lives in Brooklyn. The glass in the above photograph contains a Singapore Sling.

Comments

Castin Anderson
May 5 21:24

I am Austrian-American (actually full-blooded Austrian)and was very taken by "Right Hand of Sleep". I have always longed to somehow articultate what was impossible to articulate....
Well, I was wondering if J.W. has a website...my own families have simlar stories...sad, cowardly/brave/mediocre, unhappy stories with a nostalgic and almost pathological loyalty to the hills and mountains they call home (more to the land than the people!!)...and I feel as though I carry those with me somehow and am not finding resolve. My American life and surroundings are not resonating with that part of me and I wonder how I can find relief... How does John Wray feel about his Austrian half?