Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His work has been categorized as being part of the “post-postmodern” literary genre characterized by absurdist and absurdist-adjacent humor, surrealism, and magical realism. His writing takes into account the anxiety of contemporary life and often centers around themes of love, loneliness, and rediscovery. He is perhaps best known for his 2018 novel, Less, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Greer was born to a Jewish family in Washington, D.C. on June 11, 1970. He attended Catholic University of America and received his BA in English in 1992. He went on to earn an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1997.

Greer's first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001 and was followed by 2003’s The Confessions of Max Tivoli. In 2005 he released The Story of a Marriage and then in 2008, he published his fourth novel, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. Greer released his fifth novel, The Secret of Lost Things, in 2008 and it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

In 2010, he released The Privacy of My Story and in 2011 he released The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was also nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He released a collection of short stories, How it Ends, in 2013, and in 2014 his seventh novel, The Extravagance, was published.

In 2018, Greer released the novel that would make him a household name. Less is a light, yet intense, satire of contemporary life and longing. The novel follows the story of an author and failed romantic, Arthur Less, who is unable to achieve success or genuine happiness in life. On the advice of an ex-lover, Less embarks on a series of international adventures that take him from San Francisco to Morocco, Italy, Paris, Germany, India, and Japan. Throughout the novel, Less is confronted with his inability to commit to happy endings, until he finds a shocking but forgiving resolution. Less was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the California Book Award for Fiction.

Greer followed up from the success of Less with the strange, yet alluring 2019 novel, The Confessions of Frannie Langton. In the novel, Greer draws heavily on elements of Gothic fiction and unique, mix of fantasy and historical fiction. Told through alternating points of view, The Confessions of Frannie Langton Tells the story of a young woman of color struggling to survive in London as she is accused of a heinous crime. Greer captures contemporary conversational topics of race and gender in his work, while showing a nuanced portrait of 19th century life under slavery and colonialism.

Greer has had his fiction, non-fiction, and essays published in several newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Believer, GQ, and Vanity Fair. He wrote the travel memoir Italian Signs: Travels in New Italian Culture (2003), as well as Hallucinations: A Memoir (2018). In 2013, he was the recipient of the Franklin D Roosevelt Award for Conservation and in 2017 he was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Andrew Sean Greer is one of the foremost novelists in the post-postmodern literary age. With his blend of fantasy and realism, poignant characters, and unique writing style, Greer has produced works of literature that capture the essence of contemporary life and its anxieties, while still managing to offer readers redemption and hope. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Greer is a must-read for those interested in captivating and meaningful works of fiction.