Richard Powers

1957–

American novelist whose fiction connects science, technology, music and environmental questions with individual lives. He studied English literature at the University of Illinois after initially enrolling in physics, and has taught at Illinois and Stanford. The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. The Overstory won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was Bewilderment in 2021. Playground (2024), his fourteenth novel, brings together ocean life, technology and human relationships and was Booker-longlisted.

Timeline of Richard Powers’s life

Works

• Orfeo (2014)
• The Overstory (2018)
• Bewilderment (2021)
• Playground (2024)

Prizes

• Playground — The Booker Prize 2024: Longlist
• Bewilderment — The Booker Prize 2021: Shortlist, Longlist
• The Overstory — The Booker Prize 2018: Shortlist, Longlist
• Orfeo — The Booker Prize 2014: Longlist