George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels.

In 2006, Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship and won the World Fantasy Award for his short story "CommComm".

He spent some of his early twenties working as a roofer in Chicago, a doorman in Beverly Hills, and a slaughterhouse knuckle-puller.

[1] Of his influences,[13] Saunders has written: I really love Russian writers, especially from the 19th and early 20th Century: Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Babel.

I'm also inspired by a certain absurdist comic tradition that would include influences like Mark Twain, Daniil Kharms, Groucho Marx, Monty Python, Steve Martin, Jack Handey, etc.

And then, on top of that, I love the strain of minimalist American fiction writing: Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff.

While multiple reviewers have noted his writing's satirical tone, his work also raises moral and philosophical questions.

[23] Saunders won second prize in the 1997 O. Henry Awards for his short story "The Falls", initially published in the January 22, 1996, issue of The New Yorker.

[39] In a January 2013 cover story, The New York Times Magazine called Tenth of December "the best book you'll read this year".

[41] In 2017, Saunders published his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize and was a New York Times bestseller.