David Sedaris

David Sedaris

David Sedaris (David Raymond Sedaris) was born on December 26th, 1956 and is currently 69 years old. David Sedaris was born in Johnson City, New York, USA. Sedaris attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree.

David Sedaris is known for writing in the Non-Fiction genre.

David Sedaris is a radio contributor, comedian, humorist, and author. David became widely recognized by the public in 1992 when NPR broadcast his essay, called “Santaland Diaries”.

Much of his humor is self-deprecating and autobiographical. It often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his jobs, homosexuality, his Greek heritage, education, drug use, and obsessive behaviors. And his life in London, France, New York, and the South Downs in England. He’s the brother and writing collaborator of Amy Sedaris, an actress.

While he was working odd jobs in New York City, Raleigh, and Chicago, he was discovered in a Chicago club by Ira Glass, a radio host. He was reading out of a diary that he had kept since 1977. Glass, impressed by Sedaris’ work, asked him to appear on The Wild Room, his weekly local program.

After he published Barrel Fever, he became a frequent contributor to Glass’ PRI/Chicago Public Radio Show, This American Life in 1995. Sedaris also started writing essays for The New Yorker and Esquire.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, his 2000 collection of stories, won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Naked won the 1998 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction from Publishing Triangle.

Happy Go Lucky sees David write more personal essays.

Back when restaurant menus were still being printed out on paper, and wearing a mask (or not) was a choice made primarily on Halloween, David spent more of his time doing more normal things. As this book opens, he’s learning to shoot guns with his sister, buying gummy worms to feed to some ants, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, and telling his nonagenarian dad wheelchair jokes.

However, the pandemic then hits, and he’s stuck in lockdown, like a lot of others, unable to tour and read for his audiences, the part about his work that he loves the most. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how acupuncturists and sex works might be getting by during this time. It helps him cope to walk for miles through a deserted city.

In this book, he yet again captures what is the most hilarious, poignant, and unexpected about such recent upheavals (both public and personal), and expresses in precise language both the desire for connection and misanthropy which drives us all. If we have to live in interesting times, there’s nobody better to chronicle them than David.

David Sedaris: Awards & Accolades

Sedaris' books have won multiple awards, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim won the Audie Award, Best Short Stories or Collections, in 2005. When You Are Engulfed in Flames won the Audie Award, Best Narration by the Author, in 2009.

The following novels by David Sedaris were nominated for these awards:

• Me Talk Pretty One Day: Audie Award, Best Short Stories or Collections (2001).
• David Sedaris: Live at Carnegie Hall: Audie Award, Audiobook of the Year (2004).
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Audie Award, Best Narration by the Author (2005). Stonewall Book Award, Non-fiction (2005).
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames: Audie Award, Best Short Stories or Collections (2009).
• Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Goodreads Awards, Best Humor (2013).
• Theft by Finding: Goodreads Awards, Best Humor (2017).
• Calypso: Goodreads Awards, Best Humor (2018). Audie Award, Audiobook of the Year (2019).
• A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020: Goodreads Awards, Best Humor (2021).
• Happy-Go-Lucky: Goodreads Awards, Best Humor (2022).

Related Authors

Fans of David Sedaris also enjoy these authors:

1. Bill Bryson, author of the Bill Bryson Travel Books.
2. Susan Orlean, author of the Susan Orlean Library Science Books.
3. Xinran, author of: The Good Women of China.
4. David Grann, author of: Killers of the Flower Moon.
5. Haruki Murakami, author of: 1Q84.
6. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of: Eat, Pray, Love.
7. Peter Heller, author of: The Dog Stars.
8. Delia Owens, author of: Where the Crawdads Sing.
9. Mark Twain, author of the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn Series.
10. Ernest Hemingway, author of: The Old Man and the Sea.

David Sedaris: F.A.Q