Giuseppe Caputo was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1982. He studied creative writing at New York University with Diamela Eltit, Sergio Chejfec, and Antonio Muñoz Molina, and at the University of Iowa with Horacio Castellanos Moya, Marilynne Robinson, and Luis Muñoz. Also at Iowa, he specialized in queer and gender studies.