Saunders, George (1958-…), is an American author known primarily for his short stories and short novels. Much of his short fiction emphasizes dark humor and satire. In his stories, Saunders often points out the absurdities he sees in political life and other elements of modern society.
Saunders won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his first novel, the experimental ghost story Lincoln in the Bardo (2017). The prize, now called the Booker Prize, is a major literary award in the United Kingdom. Lincoln in the Bardo is based on the actual event of the death of United States President Abraham Lincoln’s son Willie in 1862, probably from typhoid fever. Much of the novel takes place during one evening when President Lincoln visits the cemetery where Willie was laid to rest. In the novel, Lincoln, in deep mourning for the death of his son, encounters Willie’s spirit, which has lingered in a state between life and the afterlife, awaiting his father’s visits. According to some traditions of the Buddhist religion, this state is known as the bardo. Many ghosts of deceased men and women appear during the narrative, each telling his or her own story.
Many of Saunders’s stories were first published in magazines, notably the New Yorker. His first collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline was published in 1996. It was followed by the collections Pastoralia (2000), In Persuasion Nation (2006), Tenth of December (2013), and Liberation Day (2022). He also wrote the short novels The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000), an adult fairy tale; and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (2005), a satirical fantasy. Many of his essays were collected in The Braindead Megaphone (2007).
Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas, on Dec. 2, 1958. He graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1981 with a B.S. degree. He was a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. Saunders received a B.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1988 and joined the school as a visiting professor of creative writing in 1996. He became a professor of creative writing at Syracuse in 1997. His teaching experience helped form the basis for A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (2021), a book on writing.
