David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time magazine named one of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005. In 2008, David Ulin wrote for the Los Angeles Times that Wallace was "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". From Wikipedia.
