Bio:

Richard Powers is the author of ten novels, including The Echo Maker, which won the National Book Award in 2006. He has received numerous honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction. According to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, “Powers is a writer of blistering intellect. He only has to think of a subject and the paint curls off. He is a novelist of ideas and a novelist of witness, and in that respect he has few American peers.” Powers is a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Letters, and his work has been translated into 16 languages. His most recent novel is Generosity: An Enhancement, which was published in 2009.