Molly Antopol

Despite her comparative youth, debut author Molly Antopol, 36, is something of a throwback. In her 2014 short-story collection, “The UnAmericans,” the San Francisco-based writer chronicled the gamut of the 20th-century American immigrant experience.
Her keen eye and knack for mimicry enabled her to expose the lives of a wide array of characters — East Coast Jews, Hollywood actors, Eastern European intellectuals, New Yorkers and Californians. The collection won wide critical acclaim. Writing for the Forward, critic Laura Moser observed, “Though the stories vary so widely in setting, decade and narrator, there’s a remarkable thematic congruity to the collection. These stories share an interest in different types of displaced persons: perpetual wanderers; immigrants who’ve left the Old World behind in body but not spirit; people who live in but are not of America.” Antopol, who has written for “This American Life,” “All Things Considered” and The New Yorker, currently teaches in the creative writing program at Stanford University.
This year, “The UnAmericans” was included on the long-list for a National Book Award.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Arson suspect attacked Shapiro over pro-Israel stances, search warrant says
-
Fast Forward Jewish family killed in New York plane crash
-
Fast Forward Israelis can no longer enter the Maldives after Palestinian-solidarity ban goes into effect
-
News Harvard is defying the Trump administration — after its own crackdown on academic freedom
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.