Russell Banks

Russell Banks‘s writings include the novels Continental Drift, Cloudsplitter, and The Darling, as well as the story collection The Angel on the Roof. His The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction were adapted into celebrated feature films. Banks lived for a time in Jamaica and in 1980 wrote the novel The Book of Jamaica. He is also the author of Dreaming Up America, a collection of essays questioning American origins, values, heroes, conflicts, and contradictions. Banks has made a life’s work of charting the causes and effects of the terrible things “normal” men can and will do. Michael Ondaatje calls Banks “the uncompromising moral voice of our time.” His most recent book is a memoir, Voyager: Travel Writings (2016), in which he writes, “Since childhood, I’ve longed for escape, for rejuvenation, for wealth untold, for erotic and narcotic and sybaritic fresh starts, for high romance, mystery, and intrigue.”