Jaroslav Kalfar was born in the Czech Republic and immigrated to the United States at the age of fifteen. He earned his MFA at NYU, where he was a Goldwater Fellow and a finalist for the E. L. Doctorow Fellowship. In 2018, he was selected for the National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship. Spaceman of Bohemia, his critically acclaimed debut novel, was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and has been translated into fifteen languages. Spaceman, an adaptation of the novel, is forthcoming soon as a major motion picture. Kalfar lives in Brooklyn.