Alan Cheuse is an American writer and critic. He graduated from Perth Amboy High School in 1957 and Rutgers University in 1961. After traveling abroad and working for several years at various writing and editing jobs, he returned to Rutgers to study for a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, which he was awarded in 1974 (having written a thesis on the life and work of the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier). He then taught literature at Bennington College for nearly a decade and then took various posts at The University of the South, the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at George Mason University.