[1] He is known for writing literary westerns exploring the people and history of the American heartland, notably The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (1983), which was adapted into an acclaimed film.
from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974 and held a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship at Stanford University.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a 1983 novel chronicling the life and death of the iconic outlaw, was Hansen's most popular work.
[7] The novel was adapted into the 2007 film of the same name, for which Hansen was an advisor for the dialogue and an actor in a cameo role as a frontier reporter.
Mariette in Ecstasy (1991), his novel of the faith and religious experience in the context of a cloistered Catholic nun who apparently bears the stigmata, earned him near universal critical praise.
In addition to his novels and short stories, Hansen has published a compilation of essays on faith and fiction (A Stay Against Confusion) and a children's book (The Shadowmaker).