Author

Russell Banks

20 books, mostly literary fiction, for Harper Perennial and Ecco, 2004–2024

Russell Banks (1940–2023) was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and essayist whose writing career began with poetry before he published his first novel, Family Life, in 1975. His acclaimed fiction, including Continental Drift, Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, Cloudsplitter, and Foregone, explored working-class life, family conflict, race, class, social forces, and moral responsibility. He also taught creative writing at Princeton University and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.