George Saunders, Oak Forest High Grad, Wins 2017 Man Booker Prize

George Saunders, the award-winning writer who grew up in Oak Forest and graduated from Oak Forest High School, has won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his debut novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo," the award's sponsor, the Man Group, announced this week. He is the second American author to be awarded the honor in the British prize's nearly 50-year history. The Man Booker Prize, first handed out in 1969, honors "high quality literary fiction written in English," and past winners have included Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Iris Murdoch.

Saunders, 58, has built a reputation as a renowned short story author, and his previous collections include "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," "In Persuasion Nation" and "Tenth of December: Stories." He's also known for his essay, "A Two-Minute Note to the Future," that was published on Chipotle bags in 2014.

“More people from Oak Forest contact me about the Chipotle bags than any of my other writing," Saunders, who was born in Texas, told Oak Forest High School English classes in 2015. He graduated from the school in 1977 and earned his bachelor's degree in geophysical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines before picking up a master's in creative writing from Syracuse University. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest Oak Forest news. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

RELATED: Oak Forest HS English Classes Interview Author George Saunders

"Lincoln in the Bardo" looks at the night in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln's 11-year-old son was buried in a Washington, D.C., cemetery. Saunders told Time magazine he hadn't had a previous interest in Lincoln, but he became so enthralled "by this story I'd heard years ago about him entering his son's crypt" that he was compelled to try to create that same response in others.

"The form and style of this utterly original novel, reveals a witty, intelligent, and deeply moving narrative," said Baroness Lola Young, this year's chair of judges for the Booker Prize. "This tale of the haunting and haunted souls in the afterlife of Abraham Lincoln’s young son paradoxically creates a vivid and lively evocation of the characters that populate this other world. 'Lincoln in the Bardo' is both rooted in, and plays with history, and explores the meaning and experience of empathy."

Judges chose "Lincoln in the Bardo" over 144 submissions. Saunders, who now lives in New York, receives £50,000 (about $65,700) for winning, plus £2,500 (about $3,200) for making the prize's short list. He also gets a designer bound edition of his novel.

Go to this archived website to read George Saunder's essay, ""A Two-Minute Note to the Future." For more about the Man Booker Prize, go to the award's website.

Author George Saunders won the 2017 Man Booker Prize book for his first full-length novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo." He received the award Tuesday, Oct. 17, in London. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth | Associated Press)

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