November 26, 1943 -
American novelist and essayist
Author of "Housekeeping" (for which she was on the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction shortlist in 1982), "Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution" (for which she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1989), "Gilead" (for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2004 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005), "Home" (for which she was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2008) and "Lila" (for which she won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2014 and was on the Man Booker Prize longlist in 2015)
Was a Man Booker International Prize nominee in 2011 and 2013
Awarded the National Humanities Medal for "grace and intelligence in writing" in 2012
Won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2016