Family Life (Sharma) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—July 22, 1971
• Where—Delhi, India
• Raised—Edison, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; Harvard Law School
• Awards—O. Henry Prizes ("several"); PEN/Hemingway Award;
   Whiting Writers' Award
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


Akhil Sharma, an Indian-American author, was born in Delhi, India. He immigrated to the United States when he was eight, growing up in Edison, New Jersey.

Sharma studied at Princeton University, where he earned his B.A. in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School. While there, he also studied under a succession of notable writers, including Russell Banks, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Auster, John McPhee, and Tony Kushner. He then won a Stegner Fellowship to the writing program at Stanford, where he won several O. Henry Prizes. He then attempted to become a screenwriter, but, disappointed with his fortunes, left to attend Harvard Law School.

Sharma is the author of the 2000 novel, An Obedient Father, for which he won the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award and the 2001 Whiting Writers' Award. His second novel, Family Life, was published in 2014.

He has also published stories in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Quarterly, Fiction, Best American Short Stories (anthology), and O. Henry Award Winners (anthology). His short story "Cosmopolitan," anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1998, was also made into an acclaimed 2003 film of the same name, which has appeared on the PBS series Independent Lens. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/24/2014.)