Overview
David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers.
He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers.
Beloved for his personal essays and short stories, David Sedaris is the author of the New York Times best-sellers Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso. His book The Best of Me, collects 42 previously published stories and essays. Sedaris also wrote Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of fables with illustrations by Ian Falconer. He is the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories.
His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.” The two volumes of his diaries, Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) and A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003-2020) were New York Times bestsellers. An art book of Sedaris’s diary covers, David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium, was edited by Jeffrey Jenkins. His most recent book, Happy-Go-Lucky, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The audio version of Happy-Go-Lucky, written and narrated by Sedaris, won the 2023 Audie Award. His next book will be a short graphic novel for children with illustrations by Ian Falconer titled Pretty Ugly (TOON Books, February 27, 2024).
Sedaris and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.
Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His audio recordings include “David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure” and “David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall.” A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). Since 2011, he can be heard annually on a series of live recordings on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Meet David Sedaris.” In 2019 David Sedaris became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his Masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released.
There are over 16 million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.
