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BIO
Russell Banks was raised in New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. The eldest of
four children, he grew up in a working-class environment, which has played a major role in
his writing.
Mr. Banks (who was the first in his family to go to college) attended
Colgate University, and later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before he could support himself as a writer, he tried his hand at
plumbing, and as a shoe salesman and window trimmer. More recently, he has taught at a
number of colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence,
University of New Hampshire, New England College, New York University and Princeton
University.
A prolific writer of fiction, his titles include SEARCHING FOR SURVIVORS, FAMILY LIFE,
HAMILTON STARK, THE NEW WORLD, THE BOOK OF JAMAICA, TRAILERPARK, THE RELATION OF MY
IMPRISONMENT, CONTINENTAL DRIFT, SUCCESS STORIES, AFFLICTION, THE SWEET HEREAFTER, RULE OF
THE BONE and CLOUDSPLITTER. He has also contributed poems, stories and essays to The
Boston Globe Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire,
Harper’s and many other publications.
His works have been widely translated and published in Europe and Asia. Two of his
novels have been adapted for feature-length films: The Sweet Hereafter (directed by
Atom Agoyan, winner of the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes
Film Festival) and Affliction (directed by Paul Schrader, starring Nick Nolte,
Willem Dafoe, Sissy Spacek and James Coburn). He is the screenwriter and producer of a
film adaptation of CONTINENTAL DRIFT (Agnieszka Holland to direct) and producer of The
Book of Jamaica, both currently in development. Also, film rights for THE RULE OF THE
BONE have been optioned by 20th Century Fox.
Mr. Banks has won numerous awards and prizes for his work, among them a Guggenheim
Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Ingram Merrill
Award, The St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, O. Henry and Best American Short Story
Award, The John Dos Passos Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of
Arts and Letters. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. CONTINENTAL
DRIFT and CLOUDSPLITTER were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and 1998
respectively. AFFLICTION was short listed for both the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize and the
Irish International Prize.
He has lived in a variety of places, from New England to Jamaica, which have
contributed to the richness of his writing. He is currently living in upstate New York.
THE ANGEL ON THE ROOF is his first collection of short stories in fifteen years.
Russell Banks is married to the poet Chase Twichell, and is the father of four grown
daughters.
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