Antopol was born in
Culver City, California, to a family with an Eastern European Jewish history. Her debut story collection,
The UnAmericans, was published in 2014 by
W. W. Norton & Company. It was nominated for the
National Book Award, and won the 2015
New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Antopol's other awards include "5 Under 35" award from the
National Book Foundation; the French-American Prize; the
California Book Award Silver Medal; and the
Ribalow Prize. The
New York Times compared Antopol's work favorably to
Grace Paley and
Allegra Goodman. On
NPR, author
Meg Wolitzer commented that Antopol's work will "make you nostalgic, not just for earlier times, but for another era in short fiction. A time when writers such as Bernard Malamud, and Issac Bashevis Singer and Grace Paley roamed the earth." == Awards and honors ==