Dave Eggers Biography Quotes 15 Report mistakes

15 Quotes
Occup.	Writer
From	USA
Born	January 8, 1970
Age	56 years

Early Life and Family
Dave Eggers was born on March 12, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, notably Lake Forest, Illinois. He came of age in a household with three siblings, including his older brother Bill and his sister Beth, and his much younger brother, Christopher, known as Toph. In his early twenties he faced the deaths of both parents within a short span, an experience that dramatically reshaped his responsibilities and outlook. He became a primary caregiver for Toph, a relationship that would define his early adulthood and later form the emotional core of his breakout memoir.

Education and Move to San Francisco
Eggers attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying journalism. The family losses prompted him to leave school and move with Toph to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990s. There he immersed himself in the region's independent press and arts communities, gradually building a network of collaborators while experimenting with new formats for writing and publishing.

Early Publishing Ventures
In San Francisco, Eggers co-founded the satirical culture magazine Might with friends, honing a voice that mixed humor with a sharp eye for media culture. The magazine's irreverence and elaborate pranks gained a cult following before it folded in the late 1990s. He then launched McSweeney's, first as a literary journal and later as a small press that would publish books, the quarterly literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and the humor site McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Through these ventures, he nurtured an ecosystem for emerging and established writers outside traditional publishing channels.

Breakthrough as Author
Eggers's memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), chronicled his parents' deaths and his years raising Toph with a blend of candor, experimentation, and self-conscious humor. The book became a bestseller and was a finalist for major literary prizes, making Eggers one of the most visible literary figures of his generation. Its portrait of sibling devotion and grief cemented Toph as a central figure in the public's understanding of Eggers's life.

Expanding Literary Range
After the memoir, Eggers wrote across genres. His novel You Shall Know Our Velocity! explored friendship, loss, and the ethics of altruism. With What Is the What, he collaborated closely with Valentino Achak Deng to tell Deng's story of displacement from Sudan and resettlement in the United States; proceeds supported educational initiatives in South Sudan through a foundation established with Deng. A Hologram for the King, a lean, contemporary novel about a salesman in Saudi Arabia, earned widespread acclaim and became a finalist for national awards. He continued to alternate between fiction and nonfiction: Zeitoun followed the experiences of Abdulrahman Zeitoun during and after Hurricane Katrina, and The Monk of Mokha traced the journey of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Yemeni American entrepreneur building a coffee business amid war. He also published short stories in How We Are Hungry and ventured into books for younger readers, including Her Right Foot.

Film and Screenwriting
Eggers extended his storytelling to film. With Spike Jonze he co-wrote the screenplay for Where the Wild Things Are, translating Maurice Sendak's classic into a feature film. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Away We Go with his wife, the novelist Vendela Vida; the film, directed by Sam Mendes, combined road-movie structure with wry domestic comedy. A Hologram for the King was adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks, bringing one of Eggers's novels to a broader audience.

Publishing and Magazines
Through McSweeney's, Eggers helped launch and sustain projects that broadened literary culture. The Believer magazine, founded by Vendela Vida, Heidi Julavits, and Ed Park and published by McSweeney's, became a home for essays, interviews, and criticism distinguished by curiosity and generosity of tone. As a publisher and editor, Eggers championed formal experimentation and a wide range of voices, maintaining a small-press ethos while reaching national and international readers.

Education and Human Rights Initiatives
Eggers has paired literary work with civic projects focused on education and human rights. In 2002 he co-founded 826 Valencia in San Francisco with educator Ninive Calegari, creating a whimsical storefront and writing-tutoring center for students. The model, pairing volunteer tutors with young writers, expanded into the nationwide network 826 National. Eggers and Calegari, along with Daniel Moulthrop, also co-authored Teachers Have It Easy, a book advocating better support for educators. With human rights physician Lola Vollen, he co-founded Voice of Witness, an oral history series amplifying the voices of people affected by injustice around the world. His collaboration with Valentino Achak Deng extended beyond the page into educational initiatives in South Sudan.

Later Work and Ongoing Themes
Eggers has continued to publish novels and nonfiction that engage with technology, commerce, displacement, and community. The Circle and its follow-up, The Every, critique surveillance capitalism and the social costs of frictionless digital life. Heroes of the Frontier explores reinvention and parenthood through a wandering road narrative. Across these books, Eggers's prose tends toward clarity and drive, often foregrounding ethical questions and the agency of individuals navigating large systems.

Personal Life and Influence
Eggers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with Vendela Vida, whose own novels and editorial work have been central to the creative orbit surrounding McSweeney's and The Believer. His siblings, especially Toph and Bill, have remained touchstones in his public and private narrative. The people he has collaborated with or championed, Valentino Achak Deng, Ninive Calegari, Lola Vollen, Spike Jonze, Mokhtar Alkhanshali, and many writers published by his press, illustrate a career intertwined with community-building. The cumulative effect of his writing, publishing, and nonprofit efforts has been to expand opportunities for storytelling: giving young people tools to write, giving witnesses to history space to speak, and giving readers a mix of heart, inquiry, and invention that has marked his work since his earliest days on the page.

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