Peter Balakian grew up in Teaneck and Tenafly, New Jersey and holds a BA from Bucknell University and a Ph.D. from Brown University. He is the author of four books of poems, most recently Dyer's Thistle, as well as the celebrated Sad Days of Light, a book about American poet Theodore Roethke, and a translation of the Armenian poet Siamanto.

His acclaimed memoir Black Dog of Fate has been awarded the 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Best Memoir. Black Dog of Fate was a New York Times Notable Book of 1997 and a "Best Book of the Year" for the Los Angeles Times, Publisher's Weekly, and Library Journal., Publisher's Weekly called Black Dog of Fate "a prose masterpiece by an acclaimed poet," and the Philadelphia Inquirer called it "a landmark chapter in the literature of witness."

Balakian is a  Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Colgate University, where he teaches American literature, creative writing, a course on the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, and is the current director of Colgate's new Center for the Study of Ethics and World Societies. He lives in Hamilton, New York with his wife and children.