Richard Powers

Richard Powers is the author of nine novels. The Echo Maker (2006) won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

Between ages 10 and 32, there was one every two months. But the book that has changed me most surprisingly and repeatedly over the longest period of time is Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.

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What is the strangest thing you’ve done when researching a book?

For my novel Generosity, about the “happiness gene”, I became the ninth human being on earth to have his genome sequenced.

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Which literary character most resembles you?

Josef K.

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What work do you wish you’d written?

Tom Stoppard’s [play] Arcadia. I’d trade my soul for it.

Read the complete interview.

--Marshal Zeringue