Paul Harding

Paul Harding is an American writer of literary fiction. He is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tinkers (2009), an imaginative and heartbreaking story that has earned wide-spread acclaim. Harding’s unique style and profound insight into the human condition has secured his reputation as one of the most celebrated and noteworthy authors of his generation.

Paul Harding was born in 1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in Hudson, Massachusetts. He is the eldest of five children. He attended Brown University, where he graduated in 1992 with a BA in English. After attending Brown, Harding held a variety of jobs, such as teaching English and playing drums in various bands, before eventually decided to pursue writing full-time.

In 2005, Harding published his debut novel, The Drowning House, which was dubbed a “devastating work” by critic Anna Mundow. The novel follows a young woman’s emotionally fraught life, and provides an unflinching portrayal of death, loss, and grief.

In 2009, Harding followed up The Drowning House with his second novel, Tinkers. The novel tells the story of George Washington Crosby, a terminally ill clock repairman. A deeply imaginative narrative that captures the dying man’s recollections of his family and the forces of nature, Tinkers has become a benchmark in American literature, winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Since the success of Tinkers, Harding has published two more novels—Enon in 2013, and Prairie Empire in 2014—and two collections of short stories, The House of Wooden Cubes in 2001 and Within the Sanctuary of Wings in 2015.

In 2018, Harding released his fourth novel, Dare Me, a new exploration of death, loss, and grief. The novel is told from the perspective of Alice, an artist and teacher, whose life is complicated by the death of her husband. Alice’s search for solace takes her on a journey of self-discovery and exploration.

Paul Harding’s writing covers a wide range of themes and emotion, from loss and grief to love and redemption. His characters grapple with profound questions of life and death, providing readers with both a window into their lives and a reminder of the power of the human spirit.

Harding’s in-depth understanding of the human condition, combined with his poetic and vivid prose, has earned him a reputation as an essential voice of 21st century American Literature. Harding’s novels, short stories, and other writings have been positively received by critics and readers alike, and continue to enrich the literature of our time.