“I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform, but underneath, they're not feeling conformist.”

American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer

Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Born in 1959, he is best known for his fiction, especially The Corrections and Freedom, which brought him wide critical attention and major literary recognition. The Corrections, published in 2001, won the National Book Award and was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, while earning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and a place on the shortlist for the International Dublin Literary Award. Freedom, published in 2010, was similarly praised and led to a Time cover that called him the “Great American Novelist.” His novel Crossroads appeared in 2021 and began a projected trilogy.