Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart was born in the former Soviet Union. He moved to the US along with his family when he was seven years-old. On New Year’s Eve 2014, he had an idea: what would it be like if he spent a week watching just Russian state TV?

Gary Shteyngart writes in English, but his memoir draws on the Russian and Yiddish of his Leningrad childhood, and the Hebrew of his schooling in New York.

Just a year ago, in his novel Super Sad True Love Story, Shteyngart depicted the US government defaulting on its debt – most of it held by the Chinese. Then the political system pretty much collapses and there’s rioting in the streets.

Gary Shteyngart set his new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, in a dystopian, not-too-distant future where books are passe and social media reigns supreme ? just like the present, only worse. Shteyngart tells Kurt how the reality of America’s decline ended up outpacing his fiction and why love in the face of authoritarian systems […]

Gary Shteyngart has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, is one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and was just selected for the New Yorker’s ’20 under 40′ list. We talk with him about his new book, ‘Super Sad True Love Story.’