Monday, Apr. 04, 2011

Jennifer Egan

Age: 48
Occupation: Author
Previous TIME 100 appearances: 0

Jennifer Egan is the type of genre-defying writer that comes around once every — what, decade? Generation? We're not even sure. Egan works in fractured styles, hidden narrators and even one PowerPoint presentation. Her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award. Never has a book deftly covered the role that popular music and technology play in our lives — from the 1970s punk movement to a teenage boy obsessed with the pauses in between rock songs — and the way our language is transformed by the gadgets we invent and then overuse.