American writer Rachel Kushner was born in 1968 in Eugene, Oregon, to unconventional parents from the Beatnik generation. At age five her mother found her a job working in a feminist lesbian bookstore to find her something to do after school. In 1979 she moved to San Francisco and studied at the University of California in Berekeley and obtained a MFA in creative writing at Columbia University in 2001. She has edited the Grand Street and BOMB magazines and currently edits a Brooklyn based magazine, Soft Targets. She is presently living in New York with her husband and young son. Her first novel, "Telex From Cuba" was published in 2008 which was among the finalists for the National Book Award. Her second book "Flamethrowers" came out in 2013 and is set amongst the New York 70s art scene and Itaian underground.