George Saunders (2)

American writer, essayist, journalist and professor at Syracuse University (b. 2 December 1958, Amarillo, Texas). George Saunders is a MacArthur Fellow (2006), a Member of the American Academy Of Arts And Letters and earned numerous other prestigious accolades over the years, including Guggenheim Fellowship, Booker Prize, and four National Magazine Awards. He works in various genres and formats, from children's literature to short stories and novels, often focusing on the absurdity of consumerism and corporate culture and mass media's twisted role in modern society. Saunders contributed to The New Yorker, GQ Magazine, McSweeney's and other notable publishers and periodicals, and had a weekly column, American Psyche, in The Guardian between 2006 and 2008. George Saunders spent most of his 20s working odd jobs across America, from Chicago to Beverly Hills. In 1981, he received a Bachelor's degree in geophysical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Saunders earned his Master's in creative writing from Syracuse University in 1988. Describing his influences, George Saunders wrote: "I really love Russian writers, especially from the 19th and early 20th Century: Gogol, Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Babel. [...] I'm also inspired by a certain absurdist comic tradition that would include influences like Mark Twain (2), Daniil Charms, Groucho Marx, Monty Python, Steve Martin (2), Jack Handey, etc. And then, on top of that, I love the strain of minimalist American fiction writing: Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver."