John Henderson (born 1971), better known by his pen name John Wray, is a novelist and regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine. Born in Washington, D.C., of an American father and Austrian mother, he is a citizen of both countries. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, attended the Nichols School for his high school education, and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Wray's first novel, The Right Hand of Sleep, was published in 2001 and received a Whiting Writers' Award. In connection with his second novel, Canaan’s Tongue, he did a 600-mile tour by raft on the Mississippi River in 2005. In 2007 Wray was chosen by Granta magazine as one of the "Best of Young American Novelists". His third novel, Lowboy, was published in 2009.
Wray was also frontman of the Brooklyn band Marmalade, which released the album Beautiful Soup in 2003.[1] As part of the promotional activities surrounding the release of Lowboy, he recorded subway musicians for a Lowboy MP3 soundtrack.
He is a recipient of the 2010/2011 Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin.