Richard Powers has been called America's “greatest living novelist”, “its Amost ambitious novelist”, its “smartest novelist”, its “pre-eminent novelist of ideas”, and (ironically often) its best writer no one has ever heard of. He has been compared to Tolstoy, Melville, Joyce and Proust. His nine books, which he has described as an ongoing attempt to “say what it means to be alive”, have been celebrated by critics and won almost every award imaginable; they seem certain to spawn Ph.D. dissertations for generations to come. The best way to sum him up, though, may be his own definition of an ideal writer: “one capable of reinventing herself with each new project.”
For a long time Powers did his utmost to keep his personal life private. He did not do book signings,
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Citation: Mailloux, Peter. "Richard Powers". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 February 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11769, accessed 14 May 2024.]
