“We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

Canadian visual artist and writer

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian visual artist and writer, known for his 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Trained first as a sculptor, he became widely known through fiction rather than through the visual arts. Generation X brought him international attention and helped popularize the terms Generation X and McJob. He later published many books, including novels, short story collections, and essay collections, and also wrote as a columnist and contributor for periodicals such as the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, and Wired.