William T. Vollmann

William T. Vollmann is an American novelist, short story writer and journalist known for long, deeply researched books that take on war, violence, poverty and history. Born in Los Angeles, he has written fiction and reporting for The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin and Granta.

His fiction includes the short story collections The Rainbow Stories and 13 Stories and 13 Epitaphs, the novels Butterfly Stories and The Royal Family, and Seven Dreams, a multivolume series of novels about the encounters between Native American peoples and European settlers in North America. Europe Central (2005), a novel built from linked stories set in Germany and the Soviet Union during the twentieth century, won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction.

His nonfiction includes Rising Up and Rising Down, a seven-volume study of violence, and Poor People, a book about poverty around the world. His earlier honors include the Whiting Writers' Award and the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize.