George Saunders is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller Tenth of December, which won the Folio Prize 2014 and was shortlisted for the National Book Award 2013, an essay collection, The Braindead Megaphone, and the critically acclaimed story collections Civil WarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation.

In 2013, he gave a graduation lecture at Syracuse University, which was then published as a New York Times bestselling book, Congratulations, by the way. In 2006, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.

In 2017 he was awarded The Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo.