Chad Harbach

Chad Harbach is an American author and editor of literature, culture, and the arts. His debut novel The Art of Fielding was hailed by critics as a major work and one of the defining novels of its generation. The book was named one of the ten Best Books of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Harbach was born in 1979 in Racine, Wisconsin. He graduated from Horace Mann School in New York City in 1997 and from Harvard College in 2001, where he studied literature under the supervision of Harvard critic Helen Vendler. He is the co-founder of n+1, a literary magazine and online publication, where he serves as editor-at-large. His other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, and The London Review of Books.

The Art of Fielding, published in 2011 by Little, Brown and Co., is a sprawling and inventive baseball novel that follows the story of a high school shortstop whose skill on the diamond is disrupted by an arm injury. It is an epic tale of ambition, hope, and friendship that evokes coming-of-age stories such as Of Mice and Men and The Catcher in the Rye. It's also a book that captures the spirit of the game of baseball, exploring how sports both reflect and shape our national psyche.

The book was widely praised upon its release, earning several honors and becoming an international bestseller. It was a New York Times bestseller and a selection of the Book of the Month Club, among other honors. The New York Times called it "a wisdom-packed novel of baseball, friendship and a young man's search for an adult life." The Guardian praised its mix of humor and heartache, saying "Harbach has explored the appeal of baseball and its power to capture imaginations more successfully than any novel about the sport since Bernard Malamud’s The Natural."

In addition to his work as an author, Harbach is an associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. He currently lives in New York City, where he continues to write and edit.

Harbach's literary style is characterized by a wry wit and a strong philosophical and psychological edge. His ability to explore complex relationships is matched by an unparalleled mastery of baseball metaphor and imagery. He has a skill for evoking a range of emotions and capturing the frustration, fear, and passion that can be part of any game.

The Art of Fielding is a novel that will stick with readers long after they've finished it. It's a powerful and authoritative look at human life and how we navigate the landscape of relationships, and it speaks to the depths of what it really means to be human. Chad Harbach has made an indelible mark on contemporary literature, and with the release of his upcoming novel, The Flamethrowers, he promises to continue to command the attention of book lovers everywhere.