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Author Description Ben Lerner is an American poet, novelist, and critic. He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets, <i>The Lichtenberg Figures</i>. In 2004, <i>Library Journal</i> named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry. <i>The Lichtenberg Figures</i> appeared in a German translation in 2010, for which it received the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie" in 2011, making Lerner the first American to receive this honor.<br /><br />Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School where he was a standout in debate and forensics. At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, <i>Angle of Yaw</i>, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)". Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, <i>Mean Free Path</i>, was published in 2010.<br /><br />Lerner's first novel, <i>Leaving the Atocha Station</i>, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011. It was named one of the best books of the year by <i>The New Yorker</i>, <i>The Guardian</i>, <i>The New Statesman</i>, <i>The Wall Street Journal</i>, <i>The Boston Globe</i>, and <i>New York Magazine</i>, among other periodicals. It won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for "first fiction" and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.<br /><br />In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for <i>Critical Quarterly</i>, a British academic publication. He has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.<br /><br />Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.

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