He was born in Long Island, (New York) in 1970 into an orthodox Jewish family. The publication of “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges”, when he was 29, represented the most stunning literary debut in the last fifteen years. His short stories, exhilarating, surprising and full of pain, combine the great Jewish-American literary tradition of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the taste of irony and absurdity of Gogol. Englander is one of the few contemporary writers who became a classic thanks to a single book of short stories, and confirmed the extraordinary quality of his talent and the originality of his expressive world with his first novel “The Ministry of Special Cases”. His short stories and his articles are published in the “New Yorker”, “The New York Times”, and “The Atlantic Monthly”. Presently he is translating a new version of the Haggadah, the editor of which is Jonathan Safran Foer. He describes himself as being uncertain of the existence of God, however in response to the question: “where do you believe is your grandfather now?” he answers: “In Paradise”.