Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Anderson, Poul, 1926-2001
Parallel form(s) of name
- Андерсон, Пол, 1926-2001
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Sanders, Winston P., 1926-2001
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1926-2001
History
Poul Anderson was born November 25, 1926, in Bristol, PA. He lived in Port Arthur, Texas for a decade, then in Denmark, Maryland, and finally Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, earning a bachelor’s degree in Physics, and selling his first science fiction story in 1947 while still an undergraduate. By 1948, he was a full-time freelance writer, his profession for the rest of his life. Anderson was highly regarded in science fiction and fantasy. He was honored with seven Hugo Awards, three Nebula Awards, a variety of other awards, and was named “Grand Master” of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1997/1998. A 1981 entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography called him “one of the five or six most important writers to appear during the science-fiction publishing boom of the decade following the end of World War II.” Anderson used his scientific training to write technically accurate science fiction, to project plausible future technologies, and to be regarded as an outstanding “hard science fiction” writer. He also wrote highly regarded fantasies, and viewed much of his own work more in the realm of magical realism than anything else. Anderson died in 2001 at age 74.