Russell Banks has published ten novels, six short story collections, and four poetry collections. His novels Cloudsplitter and Continental Drift were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Two of Banks's novels have been adapted for feature-length films, The Sweet Hereafter (winner of the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival) and Affliction (which earned a 'Best Supporting Actor' Oscar for James Coburn). Banks has won numerous awards for his work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, O. Henry and Best American Short Story Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of America's most prestigious fiction writers, Russell Banks was president of the International Parliament of Writers and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The story of Fife's early life - heavily based on Banks's own - is graphic, gripping -- David Grylls * Sunday Times * It's little wonder that Russell Banks has won major awards for his subtle, seductive novels, and Foregone - the author's first new novel for a decade - also deserves a place among prize-winners. Banks's style is haunting, meditative and gripping, with its protagonist's personal revelations striking compelling rhythmic, resonant beats * LoveReading (eBook of the month) * The questions of what is true, what is a consequence of Fife's disintegrating mind, and whether the story of a life can ever be marshalled into a coherent whole, run through this...artful slice of meta-fiction like quicksilver. Hard-going sometimes, but worth it -- Claire Allfree * Daily Mail * Foregone is, by far, the most cunningly metafictional novel of the author's career... Banks is one of the most sociologically minded of contemporary American authors... he is still working at the height of his powers... a tale of deep grace and significance... If Foregone turns out to be Banks's final novel (and, given its many strengths, one hopes not), it is a profoundly compelling valedictory -- Rob Latham * Los Angeles Review of Books * Gripping, human, beautifully written - Foregone is there with the best of Russell Banks' work. I loved it -- Roddy Doyle