MFA Reading Series: Adam Johnson

A Professor of English with emphasis in creative writing at Stanford University, Adam Johnson authored several books, including “Fortune Smiles,” which won the National Book Award. His New York Times bestselling novel, “The Orphan Master’s Son” received the Pulitzer Prize. Of the novel, the critic Michiko Kakutani wrote, “Mr. Johnson has written a daring and remarkable novel, a novel that not only opens a frightening window on the mysterious kingdom of North Korea, but one that also excavates the very meaning of love and sacrifice.” Johnson’s honors include a Whiting Award, the Story Prize, The Sunday Times Short Story Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy in Berlin. His stories have appeared in Esquire, GQ, Playboy, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Born in South Dakota, Johnson is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. His teaching and research interests include the development of the novel, indigeneity, the oral tradition, counter narrative, trauma theory and speculative fiction.