Boris Fishman biography

Boris Fishman Biography

Boris Fishman was born in Minsk, Belarus, and immigrated to the United States in 1988 at nine. His journalism, essays, and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The New Republic, The London Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Travel & Leisure, New York Magazine, and other publications.

Boris received a degree in Russian literature from Princeton University. Afterward, he was on the editorial staff of The New Yorker, and edited "Wild East: Stories from the Last Frontier" (Random House). Boris received his MFA in fiction from New York University, and has received residencies and fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, among others.

His first novel, A Replacement Life (HarperCollins), was a front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review: "Is there room in American fiction for another brilliant young émigré writer? There had better be, because here he is. Boris Fishman's first novel, "A Replacement Life," is bold, ambitious and wickedly smart… The only problem with this novel is that its covers are too close together… Undoubtedly, comparisons will be made — to Bellow and the Roths (Henry and Philip)… [and] Bernard Malamud."

It was also one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2014; the winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal; a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick; a best-of-2014 selection by The San Francisco Chronicle, Shakespeare & Co., and others; a BuzzFeed 20-Under-40 Debut Writers selection; and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, the Sami Rohr Prize, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. It received raves from The New Yorker, NPR, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Publishers Weekly (starred review), MSN, Vogue, and others.

His second novel, Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo, about a New Jersey couple that adopts a boy from Montana who turns out to be wild, was also a New York Times' Notable Book of the Year (2016), and has received raves from The New York Times Book Review; NPR; O, the Oprah Magazine; The Chicago Tribune; The San Francisco Chronicle and others.

Boris teaches in Princeton University's Creative Writing Program. HarperCollins will publish his next book, Savage Feast, a nonfiction family history told through recipes, in 2019.

From the author's website, Feb 2019

Boris Fishman's website

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