Saunders

George Saunders writes short stories, novels, and essays exploring empathy, morality, and the absurdities of American life. A MacArthur Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, where his 2013 commencement speech on kindness was shared more than a million times after appearing on The New York Times website, later published as Congratulations, by the Way. His novel Lincoln in the Bardo won the Man Booker Prize in 2017, and he received the 2025 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.