Elena Torre from Viareggio, Italia · CC BY-SA 2.0

An American novelist who established himself early with Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), both structurally ambitious treatments of inherited trauma and loss. He later turned to nonfiction with Eating Animals and We Are the Weather, arguing for dietary change as climate action, and returned to fiction with Here I Am. He teaches creative writing at New York University.