Randall Kenan teaches English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His most recent nonfiction book is The Fire This Time (Melville, 2007). His collection of stories Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (Harcourt, 1992) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Walking on Water (Knopf, 1999) was nominated for the Southern Book Award. Kenan has won many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, and the John Dos Passos Prize.