Born in Washington, D.C., Anthony Marra has resided and studied in Eastern Europe and has traveled through Chechnya – a common thread in some of his better known works. Felicitated highly for his short stories, he has come out with his debut novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena – a sweeping exposition of the age old adage "Everything is fair in love and war". Apart from winning awards galore, Marra also finds time to complete a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and will begin teaching as a Jones Lecturer in Fiction this fall.