Roland Merullo was born in Boston, Massachusetts and brought up in Revere, a working-class Italian American community located five miles from downtown Boston. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH and Brown University, where he also earned a Master's in Russian Language and Literature the following year. At various points in his life, he has worked in a parking garage, for the United States Information Agency in the former Soviet Union and served in the Peace Corps in Micronesia. Merullo was also a carpenter, and taught creative writing and literature at Bennington and Amherst Colleges.
Merullo’s nine published novels, include Fidel's Last Days , Golfing with God , A Little Love Story , and A Russian Requiem. His In Revere, In Those Days was a Booklist Editors' Choice and a Maria Thomas Award winner, and his Revere Beach Boulevard was finalist for the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Prize. Breakfast with Buddha was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC International Literary Award and American Savior won the Honor Award in fiction from the Massachusetts Center for the Book, while Leaving Losapas is currently optioned for film rights by John Turturro.
Merullo's nonfiction writing includes Revere Beach Elegy, a memoir that won the Massachusetts Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the travel book The Italian Summer. His new novel, The Talk-Funny Girl, will be released in Summer 2011. Merullo’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Outside Magazine, Yankee Magazine, Newsweek, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine, Boston Magazine, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Travel and Leisure Golf, Links, Golf Magazine, Golf World, Forbes FYI, AGNI, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His writing has been reviewed in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News, Newsday, People Magazine, O Magazine, and by dozens of other newspapers, magazines, internet sites and radio and TV stations. His books have been translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.
He currently lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters. For more information, please visit www.rolandmerullo.com.
