Anthony Marra is a young but already renowned American writer, the winner of a Whiting Award, Pushcart Prize, and the Narrative Prize. His debut novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, a story about Chechnya of the 90s, was highly acclaimed by U.S. critics, who compared it to works of Leo Tolstoy. The book became a bestseller and won the National Book Critics Circle’s inaugural John Leonard Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in fiction.