George Saunders, (born December 2, 1958, Amarillo, Texas, U.S.), American writer best known for his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), which won the Booker Prize. Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas, and grew up in Chicago. He received a B.S. from the Colorado School of Mines in 1981 and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University in 1988. He met his future wife, Paula Redick, at Syracuse, where they were both enrolled in the university’s creative writing program; they were engaged three weeks later and married in 1987. They have two children. Saunders was employed at an engineering company when