Jerome Charyn is the author of thirty-eight books, including three memoirs chronicling his childhood in the Bronx: The Dark Lady from Belorusse, The Black Swan, and Bronx Boy, the first two of which were New York Times Books of the Year. His several detective novels, among them Blue Eyes and Citizen Sidel, feature the mythic hero-cop Isaac Sidel. His latest novel is The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson (2010). Charyn lives in New York and Paris.