Joshua Ferris | |
|---|---|
 Ferris in 2008 | |
| Born | November 8, 1974 Danville, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Education | University of Iowa (BA) University of California, Irvine (MFA) |
Joshua Ferris (born November 8, 1974) is an American author best known for his debut 2007 novel Then We Came to the End. The book is a comedy about the American workplace, told in the first-person plural. It takes place in a fictitious Chicago ad agency experiencing a downturn at the end of the 1990s Internet boom.
Ferris graduated from the University of Iowa with a BA in English and philosophy in 1996. He then moved to Chicago and worked in advertising for several years before obtaining an MFA in writing from UC Irvine. His first published story, "Mrs. Blue," appeared in the Iowa Review in 1999. Then We Came to the End received positive reviews from The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Esquire, and Slate, has been published in 25 languages, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and received the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award.
The New Yorker published a short story by Ferris, "The Dinner Party," in August 2008. This story made him a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Another story, "A Night Out," was published in Tin House's tenth anniversary issue. Other short fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2007 and New Stories from the South 2007. His nonfiction has appeared in the anthologies State by State and Heavy Rotation. The New Yorker included him in its 2010 "20 Under 40" list.
Ferris's second novel, The Unnamed, was published in January 2010. It garnered many prominent, although mixed, reviews. Kirkus Reviews called it "audacious, risky and powerfully bleak, with the author's unflinching artistry its saving grace."[1] The New York Times review, by novelist Jay McInerney, called it "a road novel with severe tunnel vision.”[2]
Ferris's third novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, was published in May 2014. The novel was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize[3] in the first year that American works of fiction were eligible, and won the 2014 Dylan Thomas Prize[4][5] and the National Jewish Book Award.[6]
