Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology.

[citation needed] In 2010 and 2013, Powers was a Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University, during which time he partly assisted in the lab of biochemist Aaron Straight.

[6] On August 22, 2013, Stanford University announced that Powers had been named the Phil and Penny Knight Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of English.

2000's Plowing the Dark tells of a Seattle research team building a groundbreaking virtual reality while an American teacher is held hostage in Beirut.

Powers's ninth novel, 2006's The Echo Maker, is about a Nebraska man who suffers head trauma in a truck accident and believes his caregiver sister is an imposter.

[16] Powers's tenth novel, 2009's Generosity: An Enhancement, has writing professor Russell Stone encountering his former student, Thassa, an Algerian woman whose constant happiness is exploited by journalists and scientists.

In 2014, Powers wrote Orfeo about Peter Els, a retired music composition instructor and avant-garde composer who is mistaken for a bio-terrorist after being discovered with a makeshift genetics lab in his house.

[19] Bewilderment, published in September 2021,[20] was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize[21] and longlisted for the National Book Award[22] and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

[23] It is described as "an astrobiologist thinks of a creative way to help his rare and troubled son in Richard Powers’ deeply moving and brilliantly original novel.