Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections (2001), a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist. His most recent novel, Freedom, was published in August 2010.
He is known for his 1996 Harper's essay Perchance to Dream bemoaning the state of literature, and for various...
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Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections (2001), a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist. His most recent novel, Freedom, was published in August 2010.
He is known for his 1996 Harper's essay Perchance to Dream bemoaning the state of literature, and for various controversies including the 2001 selection of The Corrections for Oprah Winfrey's book club and his October 2010 declaration (in an interview for The Guardian) that "America is almost a rogue state." Franzen writes for The New Yorker magazine.
Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, the son of Irene (née Super) and Earl T. Franzen. His father, raised in Minnesota, was of Swedish descent. Franzen grew up in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in German in 1981. As part of...
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