Michael Chabon Biography

Michael Chabon

Voted one of the 20 Best American Writers under 40 by The New Yorker in 1999, Chabon has been compared to Nabokov, Philip Roth and Don DeLillo. In 1988, at age 24, he parlayed his thesis for an MFA at the University of California into a bestseller, Mysteries of Pittsburgh. His stumbled slightly with his next novel, Fountain City, which was never published. Wonder Boys (1995), however, was greeted with both critical and commercial success. Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, and Frances McDormand starred in the film adaptation of the book. Many believe Douglas gave the performance of his career in the 2000 film. Chabon has also written a couple of collections of short stories, including Werewolves in their Youth (1999). In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), Chabon, a comic book enthusiast, told the bittersweet tale of two boy geniuses who start a comic strip business during World War II. The book won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, author Ayelet Waldman, and their two children.