Background
He was born in the Bronx, New York and grew up in Plainview, Long Island.
He was born in the Bronx, New York and grew up in Plainview, Long Island.
Kalfus later attended the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and New York University.
Three of his books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, but dropped out after the first year. Kalfus started writing at an early age.
Kalfus and his family have lived in Paris, Dublin, Belgrade, and Moscow.
He believes his time in other countries keeps his observations fresh and provides him with valuable insights. Kalfus began his career by publishing short stories and now writes novels.
His most recent novel was Equilateral (2013). His first novel was The Commissariat of Enlightenment (2003), preceded by short story collections PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies (1999) and Thirst (1998).
The latter three works were each chosen among the New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
His 2015 short story collection "Coup de Foudre" features a novela with the same title, it is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Dominique Strauss-Kahn"s alleged 2011 sexual assault on a maid in a midtown New York hotel suite. In an interview in Bookslut, he told the critic Vladislav Davidzon that "the news often feeds my imagination, which is why my fiction sometimes plays off topical or historical events." The 2007 Home Box Office movie Pu-239 was based on his short story of the same name.