JOSEPH PEARSON was born in Edmonton in 1975. He graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont and received a master’s degree in philosophy and his doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. Pearson worked for the United Nations and the European Commission before returning to teaching, first at Columbia University and then at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin, where he lectures on the humanities and creative writing. His essays and short fiction appear regularly in literary journals, and he is the author of Berlin, a portrait of the city in which he currently lives.