Came to the US in 1975. Worked at a print shop on Long Island, graduated from Columbia College in 1980 with a degree in Italian literature. Studied in Bologna, Italy and got an MA in International Economics from The Johns Hopkins SAIS program. Worked for Educational Testing Service, for A. Gary Shilling, a Wall Street consultancy, Standard & Poor's, The Economist Publications. Started my own economic consulting firm, KAFAN FX Information Services. Started writing fiction in 1990. Published short stories and poems in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Salamander, River City and other publications. A collection of short stories, Europtrash, came out in Moscow in 2004 in a Russian translation by writer Andrei Gelasimov. Translated from Russian both contemporary works of prose and poetry and Russian 18th and 19th century classical writers, including Maya Kucherskaya's New Paterikon, published in English as Faith and Humor from Muscovy. First murder mystery, Murder at the Dacha, published in 2013, followed by a prequel, Latchkey Murders (2015) and a sequel, Murder and the Muse (2016). Just finished Children of the Ark, a sci-fi novel set in 2276; finishing a novel set in a New York suburb and the fourth Russian mystery, to feature gangs of disabled WWII veterans.