Omer Fried­lan­der was born in Jerusalem in 1994 and grew up in Tel Aviv. He is the author of the short sto­ry col­lec­tion The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, win­ner of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Jew­ish Libraries Fic­tion Award and a final­ist for the Wingate Prize. The book was cho­sen as an Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion Sophie Brody Medal Hon­or Book for out­stand­ing achieve­ment in Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture and longlist­ed for the Sto­ry Prize. Omer has a BA in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge and an MFA from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, where he was sup­port­ed by the Saul Bel­low Fel­low­ship. He was a Star­works Fel­low in Fic­tion at New York Uni­ver­si­ty. His col­lec­tion has been trans­lat­ed into sev­er­al lan­guages, includ­ing Turk­ish, Dutch, and Ital­ian. His writ­ing has been sup­port­ed by the Bread Loaf Fel­low­ship and Ver­mont Stu­dio Cen­ter Fel­low­ship. He cur­rent­ly lives in New York City and teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at Colum­bia University.