Don DeLillo
1936-
Typewriter: Olympia SM3 DeLuxe

In the thirty-odd years after the publication of his first novel, Americana (1971), Don DeLillo has been recognized as among the most important and influential writers of his generation. After the publication of Underworld (1998), widely considered his masterpiece, in1999 DeLillo became the first American recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, awarded to writers "whose work expresses the theme of the freedom of the individual in society" and previously awarded to Milan Kundera, Mario Vargas Llosa, V. S. Naipaul, Graham Greene, Simone de Beauvoir and Jorge Luis Borges.” The winner of the National Book Award for White Noise (1985) and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II (1991) -- among other awards -- and already the subject of several books, DeLillo has achieved international prominence for novels, plays, and short stories that powerfully engage the political, historical, and philosophical issues of our time.