Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist known for long, layered novels about families and contemporary American life. Born in Western Springs, Illinois, in 1959, he published his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, in 1988 and followed it with Strong Motion.

The Corrections (2001), the story of the Lambert family and their aging parents' wish for one last Christmas together, won the National Book Award for Fiction and brought him a wide readership. His later novels include Freedom (2010) and Purity (2015). He has also written nonfiction, including the essay collection How to Be Alone and the memoir The Discomfort Zone, and translated work by the Austrian writer Karl Kraus in The Kraus Project.

Franzen is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and lives in New York City.