Stephen Saletan was born in New York City and raised in the suburbs of Long Island. As a young child he was captivated by his Russian grandmother's stories of her youth in the old Russian city of Pskov and the revolutionary activities that led to her emigration to America.When he was thirteen he traveled with her to the Soviet city of Leningrad where he met his Russian relatives and learned more about the family's past.After finishing his undergraduate work, he attended Harvard Medical School and completed his post-graduate training in oncology. He began his medical career at Cornell University Medical Center in New York and later served on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In the 1990s he earned a degree in journalism from Columbia University, studied Russian at Middlebury College, and returned to Russia to research his family's story.He is the author and co-author of numerous medical research articles and reviews. To the Midnight Sun is his first book.
