Akhil Sharma grew up in Delhi and in Edison, New Jersey. His first novel, An Obedient Father, won the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award. His second novel, Family Life, received the International Dublin Literary Award and the Folio Prize. His stories, collected in A Life of Adventure and Delight, have appeared in the New Yorker and in Best American Short Stories. He lives and teaches in Durham, North Carolina.