Andrew Sean Greer (born November 1970) is an American
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...
and
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
writer. Greer received the 2018
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel ''
Less
Less or LESS may refer to: fewer than,: not as much.
Computing
* less (Unix), a Unix utility program
* Less (stylesheet language), a dynamic stylesheet language
* Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), a product development framework that extends Scrum
Othe ...
''. He is the author of ''The Story of a Marriage'', which ''The New York Times'' has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and ''The Confessions of Max Tivoli'', which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and received a California Book Award.
Biography
Andrew Sean Greer was born in November 1970, in
Washington, D.C.
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, the child of two scientists. He grew up in
Rockville, Maryland. He is an identical twin. He graduated from
Georgetown Day School
Georgetown Day School (GDS) is an independent coeducational PK-12 school located in Washington, D.C. The school educates 1,075 elementary, middle, and high school students in northwestern Washington, D.C. Russell Shaw is the current Head of Sc ...
, and
Brown University, where he studied with
Robert Coover
Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction.
Background
...
and
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him (and later ) de l'Ordr ...
, and served as commencement speaker. He lives part-time in Italy.
He is the author of six works of fiction. Greer taught at
Freie Universität Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
and the
Iowa Writers Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wr ...
. He was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori for a work translated into Italian, as well as a
Today Show
''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It w ...
pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, and NEA Fellow, and a judge for the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
.
Work
His stories have appeared in ''
Esquire'', ''
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...
'', ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in ''
The Book of Other People'', and ''
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009''.
His third book, ''The Confessions of Max Tivoli'', was released in 2004; a ''New Yorker'' piece by
John Updike called it “enchanting, in the perfumed, dandified style of disenchantment brought to grandeur by Proust and Nabokov.”
Mitch Albom
Mitchell David Albom (born May 23, 1958) is an American author, journalist, and musician. His books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national recognition for sports writing in his early career, he turned to writing the ...
then chose ''The Confessions of Max Tivoli'' for the ''Today Show'' Book Club and it soon became a bestseller. The story of a man aging backwards, it was inspired by the Bob Dylan song "My Back Pages." It is similar in theme to the Fitzgerald
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
and the film
''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''.
Greer's fourth book ''The Story of a Marriage'' was published in 2008. ''The New York Times'' said of it: "Mr. Greer seamlessly choreographs an intricate narrative that speaks authentically to the longings and desires of his characters. All the while he never strays from the convincing and steady voice of Pearlie." ''The Washington Post'' called it "thoughtful, complex and exquisitely written."
''The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells'' was published in June 2013.
His novel ''
Less
Less or LESS may refer to: fewer than,: not as much.
Computing
* less (Unix), a Unix utility program
* Less (stylesheet language), a dynamic stylesheet language
* Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), a product development framework that extends Scrum
Othe ...
'' was published in 2017 and received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. A follow up, ''Less is Lost'', was published in 2022 and debuted on
''The New York Times'' Best Sellers list.
Awards and prizes
* Northern California Book Award
*
California Book Award
*
New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
The Young Lions Fiction Award is an annual US literary prize of $10,000, awarded to a writer who is 35 years old or younger for a novel or collection of short stories. The award was established in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick ...
* Fellowships from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
and the New York Public Library.
*
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry.
The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...
for the short story, "Darkness".
*
Fernanda Pivano Award 2014 for American Literature in Italy.
*
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2018 for his novel ''Less.''
*
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award 2018 for ''Less''.
Bibliography
Novels
*''The Path of Minor Planets: A Novel'' (2001)
* ''The Confessions of Max Tivoli'' (2004)
* ''The Story of a Marriage'' (2008)
* ''The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells'' (2013)
* ''
Less: A Novel'' (2017)
* ''Less Is Lost'' (2022)
ISBN 9780316498906
Short fiction
;Collections
* ''How It Was for Me'' (short stories) (2000)
;Stories
[Short stories unless otherwise noted.]
References
External links
Andrew Sean Greer website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greer, Andrew Sean
1970 births
Living people
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American short story writers
21st-century American male writers
American male novelists
American male short story writers
Brown University alumni
American gay writers
Identical twins
American LGBT novelists
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners
The New Yorker people
American twins
University of Montana alumni
Writers from California
Writers from Washington, D.C.
Georgetown Day School alumni
21st-century LGBT people