Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel was born in 1979 in Merville, British Columbia, Canada. Her father was a plumber, and her mother was a social worker. When Mandel was 10 years old, she and her family moved to Denman Island, located off the west coast of British Columbia. There, she was homeschooled until she was 15 years old. At 18 years old, Mandel moved to Toronto to study contemporary dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She lived in Montreal briefly before relocating to New York City, where she now lives with her husband, playwright and producer Kevin Mandel, and their daughter. Mandel’s fourth novel, Station Eleven (2014), was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her first three novels, Last Night in Montreal (2009), The Singer’s Gun (2010), and The Lola Quartet (2012), were selected as Indie Next Picks, and The Singer’s Gun won the 2014 Prix Mystere de la Critique in France. The Glass Hotel is Mandel’s fifth novel and was published in 2020. It was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction in 2021.