Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem, born in Brooklyn (New York) in 1964, has proved that the most ambitious US narrative can be combined with pop culture (comix, blockbusters, northern soul and pulp literature) and emerge not only unscathed but actually stronger for it. Since his debut Gun with Occasional Music, published in 1994, success has followed success, with special mention of Motherless Brooklyn (2001), which Edward Norton put on the big screen, and Fortress of Solitude (2011), both published in Spain by Literatura Random House. He has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times, won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award and written several more confessional books of essays. There is a more autobiographical element to his latest novel, Dissident Gardens (Random House, 2013). He is the brother of traductor Mara Lethem, who lives and works in Barcelona.