Don DeLillo Biography

Don DeLillo is a New York novelist whose books include the critical and popular successes White Noise (1985), Libra (1988) and Underworld (1997).

Raised by Italian immigrants in the Bronx, DeLillo graduated from Fordham University in 1958 and spent the first few years of his career in the advertising business. He published his first novel in 1971 (titled Americana), and has since earned a reputation as one of the best novelists in modern American literature. Savvy and analytical when it comes to postmodern pop culture, DeLillo writes books informed by his life as a New Yorker growing up in the Cold War era.

White Noise is a dark satire about modern life, Libra is a fictional account of Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Underworld is a meandering New York tale that includes historical characters such as Frank Sinatra and J. Edgar Hoover, and Falling Man (2007) is a story exploring the after-effects of the attacks on New York on September 11, 2011. Don DeLillo is the winner of the National Book Award (for White Noise) and the American Book Award (for Underworld).