David Sedaris (born December 26, 1956) is an American humorous essayist and radio contributor. Much of his humor is autobiographical, concerning his large family life, Greek heritage, various jobs, education, and his life in France with his boyfriend Hugh. Much of his humor is self-deprecating.

David Sedaris


Sedaris was born in Binghamton, New York, and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. He dropped out of Kent State University in 1977, and ten years later graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago. (He did not attend Princeton University, although he spoke fondly of doing so in a comic baccalaureate address delivered at Princeton in June 2006.) In his teens and twenties, he dabbled in visual and performance art. His lack of success was described in several of his essays. Sedaris has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which he chronicles in his short story "A Plague of Tics."


After working a string of odd jobs across Raleigh, Chicago and New York City, Sedaris achieved prominence with the radio essay The SantaLand Diaries, describing his experiences working as an elf at Macy's department store during Christmas time in New York. The piece aired in 1992 on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and was also broadcast in the UK on Radio 4 in 1996.


His first book, Barrel Fever (1994) was a collection of essays and short fiction. Several compilations of his essays have been published in books such as Naked (1996), and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). Several of his books, including Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004) have hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for Nonfiction. He is a frequent contributor to the PRI/Chicago Public Radio show This American Life, and Esquire and The New Yorker magazines. In 2001, he was named "Humorist of the Year" by Time magazine and he received the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Although Wayne Wang optioned his book Me Talk Pretty One Day for a movie, Sedaris declined to proceed with the project out of concern for his family and how they might be portrayed in a movie.


He is also a playwright, having authored along with his sister, actress Amy Sedaris, several plays under the name "The Talent Family." These include: Stump the Host (1993), Stitches (1994), One Woman Shoe (1995), The Little Frieda Mysteries (1997), and The Book of Liz (2002) which were all produced and presented by Meryl Vladimer, when she was the artistic director of "the CLUB" at La MaMa E.T.C. He also co-authored Incident at Kobblers Knob which was presented and produced by David Rockwell at the Lincoln Center Festival.

During a Chicago Public Radio pledge drive on March 24, 2006, This American Life host Ira Glass revealed that Sedaris's next book would consist of fables about animals. Sedaris also recently read several of his short stories during a US book tour and confirmed his interest in writing from the perspective of animals.

                       

Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org