Ken Kalfus is the author of three novels, Equilateral (2013), The Commissariat of Enlightenment (2003), and A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. He has also published three collections of stories, Thirst (1998), Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies (1999), a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Coup de Foudre: A Novella and Stories (2015). He has received a Pew Fellowships in the Arts award and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has written for Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times. A film adaptation of his short story "Pu-239" aired on HBO in 2007.