Krauss is the author of three critically acclaimed novels and in 2010 was named one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" writers to watch. Fittingly, she's also married to lit wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer.

Krauss, a Long Island native, studied poetry at Stanford under tutelage of Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky, and then art history at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship. She started work on her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, at the age of 25; when it was published in 2003 Susan Sontag declared: "Nicole Krauss, with this remarkably felt, sharp-witted debut novel, strides into the forecourt of American letters." Krauss followed up with her second novel, The History of Love, in 2005. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and in various "best of" anthologies.

Krauss, Foer, and their two children live in a $6.75 million townhouse in Park Slope.

[Image via WONN.com]