Born in 1947, Mark Helprin grew up in New York City, the Hudson River Valley and in the British West Indies. Helprin received degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford. Once a member of the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli Infantry, and the Israeli Air Force, Helprin is the author of numerous novels including Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, and the children's story Swan Lake. In 1996, Helprin took on the unusual job of writing Bob Dole's Senate retirement speech. The resulting speech was widely credited with, at least temporarily, rejuvenating Dole's withering presidential campaign. A… Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Helprin works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Helprin's short story collection Ellis Island and Other Stories was nominated for a National Book Award in 1981. His stories and essays on politics have been published in the New Yorker for more than 25 years.