"She is a writer who brings us perspectives we often fail to recognize in American literature She explores the boundaries between different identities, Japanese and American, and her writing offers us insight on how such cultures can intersect and at times conflict with one another.... An exciting author on the cusp of national recognition. --John Dos Passos Prize for Literature committee"

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Her first two novels, "My Year ofMeats" (1998) and "All Over Creation" (2003), have been translated into 11 languages andpublished in 14 countries. Her most recent work, "A Tale for the Time-Being" (2013), won the LATimes Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critic sCircle Award, and has been published in over thirty countries. Ruth's documentary and dramaticindependent films, including "Halving the Bones," have been shown on PBS, at the SundanceFilm Festival, and at colleges and universities across the country. A longtime Buddhistpractitioner, Ruth was ordained in 2010 and is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and theEveryday Zen Foundation. She lives in British Columbia and New York City, and is currently theElizabeth Drew Professor of Creative Writing at Smith College."