Michael Chabon biography

The book became another bestseller for Chabon, and won Nebula and Hugo awards. The formerly serialized novel Gentleman of the Road: A Tale of Adventure was released that same year.

In May of 2008, Chabon put forth his first collection of essays, Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands. He gave proceeds from Maps & Legends to the writing nonprofit 826 National, established by novelist Dave Eggers. The following year, his second essay collection was published,

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son, which focused more on his personal life.

Months after the publication of his first children's picture book, 2011's The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, Chabon was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters with writer Jonathan Franzen and artist Kara Walker, among others. Then in September 2012, he released the novel Telegraph Avenue, which follows a multiracial cast of entangled relationships as a vinyl record store is threatened by an incoming franchise.

Chabon has contributed to The New York Review of Books, Details and The New Yorker, and has written the essay "Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory" for the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition book Super Heroes: Fashion and Fantasy. He's also worked as a screenwriter on Spider-Man 2 and John Carter, the latter film adapted from the work of one of Chabon's literary heroes, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Literary Sensibilities

Chabon explores a variety of ideas in language that's expansive in its scope, drawing from various genres and experimenting with storytelling structures as in the case of the narrative "Golems I Have Known," a fusion of fact and fiction that he once performed live. His ethnic/spiritual heritage, Judaism, has been a reoccurring theme in his work as well.

Personal Life

Previously married and divorced, Chabon wed fellow writer Ayelet Waldman in 1993. The two have four children and live in Berkeley, California. The pair has also collaborated on a series in development for HBO.

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