George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in '' The New Yorker'', '' Harper's'', '' McSweeney's'', and '' GQ''. He also contributed a weekly column, ''American Psyche'', to the weekend magazine of '' The Guardian'' between 2006 and 2008. A professor at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

, Saunders won the

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for fiction in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and second prize in the

O. Henry Awards 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 ...

in 1997. His first story collection, ''CivilWarLand in Bad Decline'', was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2006 Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2006 he won the World Fantasy Award for his short story "CommComm". His story collection ''In Persuasion Nation'' was a finalist for the

Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

in 2007. In 2013, he won the PEN/Malamud Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Saunders's '' Tenth of December: Stories'' won the 2013

for short-story collections and the inaugural (2014) Folio Prize. His novel '' Lincoln in the Bardo'' (

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

) won the 2017

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a Literary award, literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United King ...

Early life and education

Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas. He grew up in Oak Forest, Illinois near Chicago, attended St. Damian Catholic School and graduated from Oak Forest High School in Oak Forest, Illinois. He spent some of his early 20s working as a roofer in Chicago, doorman in Beverly Hills, as well as a

slaughterhouse A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

knuckle-puller. In 1981, he received a B.S. in geophysical engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. Of his scientific background, Saunders has said, "... any claim I might make to originality in my fiction is really just the result of this odd background: basically, just me working inefficiently, with flawed tools, in a mode I don't have sufficient background to really understand. Like if you put a welder to designing dresses." In 1988, he was awarded an M.A. in creative writing from

, where he worked with Tobias Wolff. While there, he met Paula Redick, a fellow writer, who would become his wife. Saunders recalled, "we otengaged in three weeks, a Syracuse Creative Writing Program record that, I believe, still stands." Regarding his influences, Saunders has written:

Career

Background and work

From 1989 to 1996, Saunders worked as a technical writer and geophysical engineer for Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, New York. He also worked for a time with an oil exploration crew in

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

in the early 1980s. Since 1997, Saunders has been on the faculty of

, teaching creative writing in the school's MFA program while continuing to publish fiction and non-fiction. In 2006, he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship. He was a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University and Hope College in 2010 and participated in Wesleyan's Distinguished Writers Series and Hope College's Visiting Writers Series. His non-fiction collection, ''The Braindead Megaphone'', was published in 2007. Saunders's fiction often focuses on the absurdity of consumerism, corporate culture, and the role of mass media. While many reviewers mention his writing's

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

tone, his work also raises moral and philosophical questions. The tragicomic element in his writing has earned Saunders comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut, whose work has inspired him. The film rights to ''CivilWarLand in Bad Decline'' were purchased by Ben Stiller in the late 1990s; , the project was in development by Stiller's company, Red Hour Productions. Saunders has also written a feature-length

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

based on his short story "Sea Oak". Saunders considered himself an

Objectivist Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

in his twenties but now views the philosophy unfavorably, likening it to neoconservatism. He is now a student of Nyingma Buddhism.

Awards

Saunders has won the

for Fiction four times: in 1994, for "The 400-Pound CEO" (published in '' Harper's''); in 1996, for "Bounty" (also published in ''Harper's''); in 2000, for "The Barber's Unhappiness" (published in '' The New Yorker''); and in 2004, for "The Red Bow" (published in ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

''). Saunders won second prize in the 1997

for his short story "The Falls", initially published in the January 22, 1996 issue of '' The New Yorker''. His first short-story collection, ''

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline ''CivilWarLand in Bad Decline'' is a book of short stories and a novella by the American writer George Saunders. Published in 1996, it was Saunders's first book. Many of the stories initially appeared in different forms in various magazines, incl ...

'', was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2001, Saunders received a

Lannan Literary Fellowship The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

in Fiction from the Lannan Foundation. In 2006, he was awarded a

from the Guggenheim Foundation. That same year, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. His short-story collection ''

In Persuasion Nation ''In Persuasion Nation'' is short story writer George Saunders’s third full length short story collection. Composed of 12 stories originally published between 1999 and 2005, the collection incorporates elements of satire and science fiction and ...

'' was a finalist for

The Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

in 2006. In 2006, he also won the

World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

for his short story "CommComm", first published in the August 1, 2005 issue of '' The New Yorker''. In 2009, Saunders received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2014, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, Saunders won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. His short-story collection '' Tenth of December'' won the 2013

. The collection also won the inaugural Folio Prize in 2014, "the first major English-language book prize open to writers from around the world." The collection was also a finalist for the National Book Award, and was named one of the "10 Best Books of 2013" by the editors of the ''

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

''. In a January 2013 cover story, '' The New York Times Magazine'' called ''Tenth of December'' "the best book you'll read this year." One of the stories from the collection, "Home", was a 2011 Bram Stoker Award finalist. In 2017, Saunders published his first novel, '' Lincoln in the Bardo'', which won the

and was a ''New York Times ''bestseller.

Awards and honors

Awards won

for Fiction, 1994 – "The 400-Pound CEO", short story, published in ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' *

for Fiction, 1996 – "Bounty", short story, published in ''

'' *

for Fiction, 2000 – "The Barber's Unhappiness", short story, published in '' The New Yorker'' *

for Fiction, 2004 – "The Red Bow", short story, published in ''

'' * Second prize in the 1997 O. Henry Awards – "The Falls", short story, published in '' The New Yorker'' (January 22, 1996 issue) * Lannan Foundation – Lannan Literary Fellowship, 2001 * MacArthur Fellowship, 2006 *

, 2006 * American Academy of Arts and Letters, Academy Award, 2009 *

– "CommComm", published in '' The New Yorker'' (August 1, 2005 issue) * PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, 2013 *

, 2013 – '' Tenth of December: Stories'' * Folio Prize, 2014 – '' Tenth of December: Stories'' * The New York Times Book Review, "10 Best Books of 2013", '' Tenth of December: Stories'' * American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elected as Member, 2014 *

, 2017 – '' Lincoln in the Bardo'' * American Academy of Arts and Letters, Inducted as Member, 2018 *

Premio Gregor von Rezzori The Premio Gregor von Rezzori (Gregor von Rezzori Award) is a literary prize awarded at the annual Festival degli Scrittori in Florence. The award was established in 2007 in honor of Gregor von Rezzori, a Mitteleuropean writer, author of novels and ...

, 2018 *

Kulturhuset Stadsteatern International Literary Prize House of Culture (Swedish: Kulturhuset) is a cultural center situated to the south of Sergels torg in central Stockholm, Sweden. The House of Culture has been described as a symbol for Stockholm as well as of the growth of modernism in Sweden. ...

, 2018

Finalist honors

* PEN/Hemingway Award, 1996 – Finalist – ''

'' *

, 2006 – Finalist – ''

'' * National Book Award for Fiction, 2014 – Finalist – '' Tenth of December: Stories'' * Bram Stoker Award, 2011 – Finalist – "Home" (short story)

Works

Novels

* '' Lincoln in the Bardo'' (2017)

Short fiction

* ''

'' (1996) ( short stories and a

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

) * '' Pastoralia'' (2000) (short stories and a novella) * ''

'' (2006) (short stories) * '' Tenth of December: Stories'' (2013) (short stories) * '' Liberation Day: Stories'' (2022) (short stories)

Other

Essays and reporting

* * * * * *

Anthologies

* ''Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts'', edited by David Shields and Matthew Vollmer (2012) * ''Cappelens Forslags Conversational Lexicon Volume II'', edited by Pil Cappelen Smith, published by Cappelens Forslag (2016) ISBN 978-82-999643-4-0

Interviews

*
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Conversation With Jennifer Egan and George Saunders
. ''New York Times Magazine'', November 2015. *
A Conversation with George Saunders
. ''Image Journal'', 2016. *
George Saunders: The Art of Fiction No. 245
. ''The Paris Review'', issue 231 (Winter 2019). *
An Interview with George Saunders
. ''Believer Magazine'', January 2021. *
George Saunders on ''A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.''
''Mayday'', March 2021.

Notes

References

External links

*

Joel Lovell, '' The New York Times Magazine'', January 3, 2013
10 Free Stories by George Saunders Available on the Web

"Adjust Your Vision: Tolstoy's Last and Darkest Novel"
George Saunders, NPR, January 6, 2013
"Radio Interview with George Saunders"
on ''Read First, Ask Later'' (Ep. 27 – Season Finale) 2014 - college radio book talk show - Lehigh Carbon Community College
"George Saunders: On Story"
by Sarah Klein & Tom Mason
Redglass Pictures
'' The Atlantic'', December 8, 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Saunders, George 1958 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American male novelists American male short story writers American speculative fiction writers Booker Prize winners Colorado School of Mines alumni Critics of neoconservatism Critics of Objectivism (Ayn Rand) Former Objectivists Granta people Living people MacArthur Fellows Nyingma Buddhists PEN/Malamud Award winners People from Amarillo, Texas Postmodern writers Syracuse University alumni Syracuse University faculty The New Yorker people Wesleyan University faculty World Fantasy Award-winning writers Writers from Chicago Writers from Texas 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters