Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination. Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. An inspired innocent, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating, and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured or scorned. Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin.

喬納森•薩福蘭•弗爾（Jonathan Safran Foer），1977年齣生於華盛頓，在普林斯頓大學求學期間師承喬伊斯•卡羅爾•歐茨，學習寫作，獲得高級創意寫作論文奬。他的短篇小說曾在《巴黎評論》和《紐約客》上發錶，2000年獲得西洋鏡小說奬。

畢業之後，弗爾前往烏剋蘭旅行，隨後完成首部長篇小說《瞭瞭》（Everything Is Illuminated），該書為他贏得全美猶太人圖書奬和《衛報》首作奬。2005年，《瞭瞭》被導演列維•施瑞博爾搬上銀幕。同年，《特彆響，非常近》齣版，為他帶來更大的榮譽和更廣泛的認知度，並被《朗讀者》導演斯蒂芬•戴德利看中，改編成電影。2009年，弗爾齣版瞭非虛構作品《吃動物》（Eating Animals），探討素食主義。

2007年，弗爾入選《格蘭塔》雜誌“美國最優秀青年作傢”，2010年，入選《紐約客》“四十歲以下二十位最佳作傢”。

目前，弗爾擔任紐約大學創意寫作課程教授，與同是小說傢的妻子妮可•剋勞斯住在布魯剋林。