Oscar Casares was born and raised in the border town of Brownsville, Texas. He is the author of two noted books, a collection of stories and a new novel, which have earned him fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copernicus Society of America, and the Texas Institute of Letters. His collection of stories, Brownsville, was selected by American Library Association as a Notable Book of 2004, and earned critical praise from such publications as The New York
Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly. His first novel, Amigoland, received a "starred review" from Publishers Weekly, which called it "a winning novel," while Kirkus Reviews described it as "exceptional." A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he now teaches creative writing at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives with his wife and two young children.