Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers grew up in Chicago and he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, shortly before graduating, both of his parents died suddenly and Eggers, aged 21, was forced to leave school to take care of his eight-year-old brother. In the early 90s, Eggers founded the satirical magazine Might; later, he worked as an editor for Salon.com. Eggers published his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a chronicle of the years he spent raising his younger brother, in 2000—the book was a bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. For the rest of the decade, Eggers published a series of successful novels and nonfiction works, including What is the What and Zeitoun, which won praise for confronting serious, present-day issues, such as gentrification, the Internet, globalization, and immigration. Eggers is also the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house, a literary magazine called The Believer, and a network of writing and tutoring centers called 826. He lives in San Francisco.