Cynthia L. Haven is a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar and the author of Evolution of Desire: Life of René Girard, Czesław Miłosz: A California Life, All Desire is a Desire for Being: Essential Writings of René Girard (Penguin Classics), Conversations with René Girard: Prophet of Envy. She writes regularly for The Times Literary Supplement and has also contributed to The New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books.