David Raymond Sedaris is an American Grammy Award-nominated humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "SantaLand Diaries". He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. His next five essay collections, Naked, Holidays on Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, became New York Times Best Sellers. In 2010, he released a collection of stories, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. In 2013, Sedaris released his latest collection of essays, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.
By 2008, his books had sold seven million copies. Much of Sedaris' humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage, jobs, education, drug use, and obsessive behaviors, and his life in France, London, and the English South Downs.