Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) was the author of such acclaimed novels as The Natural and The Assistant and a prolific master of the short story. His first short story collection, The Magic Barrel, won the National Book Award, and his 1966 novel, The Fixer, about antisemitism in Tsarist Russia, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1988, the annual PEN/Malamud award was created in his honor to recognize excellence in the art of the short story.

Philip Davis, editor, is the author of the definitive biography Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life (2010). He is the editor of The Reader magazine and Director of the Centre for Research into Reading, Information and Linguistic Systems, University of Liverpool.