Mark Slouka is an American novelist and essayist. The son of Czech immigrants, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. He is a frequent contributor to Harper's Magazine. His 2013 novel Brewster was called "instantly mesmerizing" by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan. The subject matter of his 1996 book War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the Assault on Reality encompasses the extent to which virtual reality and blurring of real life with corporate fantasy has become a "genuine cultural phenomenon". In 2003 his first novel God's Fool fictionalised the life of Siamese twins, Chang and Eng. and his 2006 short story "Dominion", originally published in TriQuarterly, was included within the anthology Best American Short Stories 2006. His short story "The Hare's Mask," originally published in Harper's, was included in the anthology The Best American Short Stories 2011. An essay of his entitled "Listening for Silence: Notes on the Aural Life" appeared in the 2004 anthology Audio Cultures. In this essay, Slouka inputs concepts and questions that pose a philosophical debate to what silence is. Can silence really exist or is it just what people decide to ignore to what makes silence? [More at Wikipedia]

January 28th, 1958 in (Age 66)