His debut short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1999.

Nathan Englander was born in West Hempstead on Long Island, New York, and grew up there as part of the Orthodox Jewish community.

[2][3] Englander lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his wife Rachel, and children Olivia and Sammy.

Another story in the collection, "The Twenty-Seventh Man," debuted as a play in November, 2012,[8] the subject of a radio program featuring audio of a reading by actor Michael Stuhlbarg.

The novel is set in 1976 in Buenos Aires during Argentina's "Dirty War" and has been described as "an impeccably paced, historically accurate novel which is alternatively side-splitting and frighteningly macabre.