Biography
Ben Lerner is the author of seven previous books of poetry and prose, as well as several collaborations with visual artists. The poems in The Lights are in conversation with—and often contain the seeds of—his acclaimed essays and novels Leaving the Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Topeka School.
In 2011, he became the first American to win the Preis der Stadt Münster für Internationale Poesie for the German translation of The Lichtenberg Figures. In 2015 he was also awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Grant.
Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Program, The Guggenheim Foundation, and The Howard Foundation.
He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College, and lives in Brooklyn.