Playground: A Novel

Playground’s author, Richard Powers, is one of the most prominent and critically acclaimed novelists of contemporary American literature. His novels tend to engage deeply with themes of scientific discovery, environmentalism, AI, and the impact of technology on human lives. Powers was born on June 18, 1957, in Evanston, Illinois; his father was a high school principal, and his mother worked as a homemaker. When Powers was young, his family moved to Bangkok, Thailand, where his father took a teaching job. Powers lived in Bangkok for several years during his childhood.

After returning to the US, Powers attended DeKalb High School in Illinois, where he was known for his academic prowess, particularly in science and mathematics. In addition, his interest in literature grew during his teenage years, fueled by his growing love for reading. Powers later attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he initially studied physics. However, he soon switched to literature, increasingly drawn to the narrative and symbolic dimensions of the arts. After graduating in 1978, Powers took various jobs, including as a freelance computer programmer and a data processor. His familiarity with technology and computers later became a recurring theme in his novels.

Powers’s literary career began in earnest in the mid-1980s when he moved to Boston and, inspired by a photograph at the Museum of Fine Arts, began writing his first novel,