Richard Powers

Richard Powers was born in 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He studied physics but soon dedicated himself to literature. His first novel, "Three Farmers on Their Way to the Dance," was published in 1985. In the Netherlands, where he later moved, he wrote his next two books, "Prisoner's Dilemma" (1988) and "The Gold Bug Variations" (1991). "Operation Wandering Soul," written during his stay in Cambridge, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1993. His subsequent works include "Galatea 2.2" (1995), "Gain" (1998), "Plowing the Dark" (2000), "The Time of Our Singing" (2003), "The Echo Maker" (2006), which won the National Book Award, "Generosity: An Enhancement" (2009), "Orfeo" (2014), and "The Overstory" (2018). In 1993, Esquire magazine named him one of the "five writers of the 1990s." In addition to the National Book Award for "The Echo Maker," he has received the MacArthur Fellowship (1989), the James Fenimore Cooper Prize (1999), and the W. H. Smith Literary Award (2003). His novels have also been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award (NBCC), and the Man Booker Prize.