Career
Knowing little English other than a few phrases she learned in school, Vapnyar quickly picked up the language and was soon writing in it, her first English-language work being published in 2002. Her stories tread what is for her familiar territory—the lives and small ambitions of Russian emigres living in New New York She was first published in Open City and then published in such magazines as The New Yorker and Harper"s Magazine, as well as in two collections, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love and There are Jews in My House.
She has also published two novels, "The Scent of Pine" and Memoirs of a Muse.
Her work is generally identified as typically Russian, dealing intimately with the daily-life concerns of its subjects with fatalistic humor. She currently lives in Manhattan.