American · b. 1959
Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" won the 2001 National Book Award and established him as a major figure in American fiction. The American author writes big social novels in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy, examining family, technology, and contemporary American life. Franzen's essays and criticism have provoked as much response as his fiction. His work insists that the novel can still engage with the totality of contemporary experience.