Eva Hoffman grew up in Cracow, Poland, where she studied music intensively before emigrating in her teens to Canada and then the United States. After receiving her B.A. from Rice University and her Ph. D. in English and American literature from Harvard University, she worked as senior editor at The New York Times, serving for a while as the newspaper's regular literary critic. She is the author of five works of non-fiction: Lost in Translation, Exit Into History, Shtetl, After Such Knowledge, and Time as well as two novels -- The Secret and Appassionata (published in the UK as Illuminations). She has studied psychoanalysis, and has written and lectured internationally on issues of exile, memory, Polish-Jewish relations, politics and culture. She has taught literature and creative writing at various universities, including the University of East Anglia, MIT and Columbia. She has written and presented radio programs, and has received the prestigious Prix Italia for Radio. Her literary awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Award and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She holds an honorary doctorate from Warwick University, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She currently lives in London, and works as visiting professor at Hunter College, CUNY.