George Saunders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an acclaimed American writer of short stories. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's. Currently a professor at Syracuse University, he won the National Magazine Award for fiction in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004 and second prize in the O. Henry Awards in 1997.
Saunders was born and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981, he received a B.S. in geophysical engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. In 1988, he obtained an M.A. in creative writing from Syracuse University.
As a young man in the 1980s Saunders considered himself an Objectivist, but is now repulsed by the philosophy, comparing it to Neoconservative thinking.[1]
From 1989 to 1996 he worked for Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, New York as a technical writer and geophysical engineer. He has worked in Sumatra with an oil exploration crew.
Since 1997, Saunders has been on the faculty of Syracuse University, teaching creative writing in the school's MFA program.
Saunders's fiction often focuses on the trivial routines of consumerism. While many reviewers are quick to mention the satirical tone in most of Saunders' writing, many of these same works also deal with the moral struggle between good and evil.
His latest book is the short story collection In Persuasion Nation (2006). Before that he published the novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (2005), originally intending it to be a children's story. [2]
The film rights to "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" were purchased by Ben Stiller in the late 1990s and a film has been rumored to be in the works for several years now with his production company, Red Hour Films.
In 2006 Saunders was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, commonly called a "genius grant". In the same year he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
[edit] Books
- CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996) (short story collection)
- Pastoralia (2000) (short story collection)
- The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000) (fable)
- The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (2005) (novella)
- In Persuasion Nation (2006) (short story collection)
[edit] External links
- Syracuse University webpage
- George Saunders fanpage
- Saunders reads a story on This American Life
- Saunders on having talent "for having talent"
- Saunders interview in Guernica Magazine (Guernicamag.com)
- Articles by George Saunders
- In-depth audio interview with Saunders on public radio program The Sound of Young America
- Q&A with George Saunders upon publication of In Persuasion Nation
