Gary Shteyngart, born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart on July 5, 1972, in Leningrad, is a Soviet-born American writer. He immigrated to the United States in 1979 and was raised in Queens, New York. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School and earned a degree in politics from Oberlin College in 1995. Shteyngart later received an MFA in creative writing from Hunter College of the City University of New York.
His career began after working for non-profit organizations and as an ESL teacher.