Education
Middlebury College; Washington and Lee University.
Middlebury College; Washington and Lee University.
Her first novel, The Borrower, was released in June 2011. lieutenant was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, an O Magazine selection, and one of Chicago Magazine"s choices for best fiction of 2011. lieutenant was translated into seven languages.
Her short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and have also appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, and Shenandoah.
Her nonfiction has appeared in Harpers and on Salon.com. Makkai"s stories have also been featured on Public Radio International"s Selected Shorts and This American Life.
Her second novel, The Hundred-Year House, is set in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, and was published by Viking/Penguin in July 2014, having received starred reviews in Booklist, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Her short story collection, Music for Wartime, was published by Viking in June 2015.
A starred and featured review in Publishers Weekly said, "Though these stories alternate in time between World World War II and the present day, they all are set, as described in the story “Exposition,” within “the borders of the human heart”—a terrain that their author maps uncommonly well.”
Makkai, who grew up in Lake Bluff, Illinois, is the daughter of linguistics professors Valerie Becker Makkai and Adam Makkai.
Her paternal grandmother, Ignacz Rozsa, was a well-known actress and novelist in Hungary. Makkai graduated from Washington and Lee University with a Bachelor in English, and earned a master"s degree from Middlebury College"s Bread Loaf School of English. She has taught at The Iowa Writers" Workshop, Northwestern University, Lake Forest College, Sierra Nevada College, and StoryStudio Chicago.
Music for Wartime, Viking (June 2015).