Lydia Davis is the author of four collections of short fiction, including Varieties of Disturbance, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award; Break It Down; Samuel Johnson is Indignant; and a novel,The End of the Story. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Poetry, and has been published in numerous literary journals ranging from The New Yorker to McSweeny's.  Davis is also the translator of numerous avant-garde French novels, memoirs, and volumes of literary criticism, most recently, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, which received the French-American Foundation Annual Translation Prize.  Among her other awards and honors, Davis was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and translation, and in 2003 received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is on the faculty of SUNY Albany and a fellow of the New York State Writers Institute.