Carlos Eire - Born in Havana in 1950, Carlos Eire left his homeland in 1962, one of fourteen thousand unaccompanied children airlifted out of Cuba by Operation Pedro Pan. After living in a series of foster homes in Florida and Illinois, he was reunited with his mother in Chicago in 1965. He worked full-time as a dishwasher, grocery clerk, and factory assembler while attending high school and college.

After earning his Ph.D. at Yale in 1979, Eire taught at St. John's University in Minnesota for two years and at the University of Virginia for fifteen. He is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. Until recently, Eire’s writing had dealt with sixteenth-century Europe and the history of Christianity.

Waiting for Snow in Havana, his first book without footnotes, won the 2003 National Book Award for Nonfiction. He lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with his wife, Jane, and their three children.