Russell Earl Banks (1940–2023) was an American novelist and activist known for his depictions of the interior lives of working-class households and immigrants at odds with economic and social forces.
Born in Newton, Massachusetts, Banks was educated at Colgate University and the University of North Carolina and initially worked as an editor and publisher. His early works were the poetry collections Waiting to Freeze (1969) and Snow: Meditations of a Cautious Man in Winter (1974,) the novel Family Life (1975,) and the story collection The New World (1978.)
Banks gained a reputation with his works set in New England: the novel Hamilton Stark (1978,) the story collection Trailerpark (1981,) and the experimental novel The Relation of My Imprisonment (1984.) His works featuring the Caribbean are the novels The Book of Jamaica (1980) and Continental Drift (1985;) the last is commonly regarded as his best work and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Banks’ subsequent novels included Affliction (1989; film 1997,) The Sweet Hereafter (1991; film 1997,) Rule of the Bone (1995,) The Darling (2005,) The Reserve (2008,) Lost Memory of Skin (2011,) and Foregone (2021.) The nonfiction Dreaming Up America (2008) examines America’s history of constructive and destructive policies. Voyager (2016) is a compilation of travel writings.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Russell Banks
Mourning can be very selfish. When someone you love has died, you tend to recall best those few moments and incidents that helped clarify your sense, not of the person who has died, but of your own self.
—Russell Banks
I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read – they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.
—Russell Banks
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