“I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, and what I like about that place is that there's not a strong regional affect in the cultural imagination like there is in Dallas or San Francisco or New York City. You have a little more freedom as a novelist this way. The suburbs become a generic idea, and the place doesn't intrude into the narrative.”

American writer

Rumaan Alam is an American writer, best known for his novel Leave the World Behind. He writes fiction with a contemporary, observant edge, and his work has reached a wide readership through Leave the World Behind, which became his best-known book. Beyond that title, he is known for writing about present-day life and the pressures that shape it.