Richard Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1944. He has published seven novels and three collections of stories, including The Sportswriter, Independence Day, A Multitude of Sins, The Lay of the Land and, most recently, Canada. Independence Day was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the first time the same book had won both prizes. Canada was awarded the Prix Femina du livre etranger in France in 2013. Richard Ford lives in Maine with his wife, Kristina Ford.