Ken Kalfus | |
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 Kalfus in October 2013 | |
| Born | April 9, 1954 New York City, U.S. |
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| Alma mater | Sarah Lawrence College The New School for Social Research New York University |
| Spouse | Inga Saffron |
| Children | 1 |
Ken Kalfus (born April 9, 1954 in New York City) is an American author and journalist. Three of his books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
He was born in the Bronx, and grew up in Plainview, Long Island. [1]
Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, but dropped out after the first year. Kalfus later attended the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and New York University. [2] Kalfus started writing at an early age.
Kalfus and his family have lived in Paris, Dublin, Belgrade, and Moscow. He believes his time in other countries keeps his observations fresh and provides him with valuable insights. [3]
Kalfus began his career by publishing short stories and now writes novels. His most recent novel was 2 A.M. in Little America (2023). [4] His previous novel, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country (2006), was a National Book Award nominee. His first novel was The Commissariat of Enlightenment (2003), preceded by short story collections PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies (1999) and Thirst (1998). The latter three works were each chosen among The New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He published his first book at the age of 44, and achieved favorable critical response.
His story collection Coup de Foudre was published in 2015. The title story is a novella, a thinly veiled fictionalization of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's alleged 2011 sexual assault on a maid in a midtown New York hotel suite. In an interview in Bookslut , he told the critic Vladislav Davidzon "The news often feeds my imagination, which is why my fiction sometimes plays off topical or historical events...." [5]
The 2007 HBO movie Pu-239 was based on his short story of the same name. [6]
He is married to Inga Saffron, Pulitzer-winning architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, [7] with whom he has a daughter, Sky. [8]
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Pu-239 is a 2006 British drama film written and directed by Hollywood producer Scott Z. Burns in his feature directorial debut, which was based on the book PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies written by Ken Kalfus. The film was shown twice at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival under the title The Half Life of Timofey Berezin before being distributed by HBO Films under its original working title. Pu-239 is the chemical symbol for plutonium-239 (239Pu), the most readily fissile isotope of the element plutonium.
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Ice is a 2002 novel by the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin. The story is set in a brutal Russia of the near future, where the Tunguska meteor has provided a mysterious cult with a material which can make people's hearts speak. The book is the first written part of Sorokin's Ice Trilogy, although the second part in the narrative; it was followed by Bro in 2004 and 23,000 in 2006.
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