FROM THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF "THE ECHO MAKER," A PLAYFUL AND PROVOCATIVE NOVEL ABOUT THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAPPINESS GENE When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar's blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror be so happy? Won't someone so open and alive come to serious harm? Wondering how to protect her, Russell researches her war-torn country and skims through popular happiness manuals. Might her condition be hyperthymia? Hypomania? Russell's amateur inquiries lead him to college counselor Candace Weld, who also falls under Thassa's spell. Dubbed Miss Generosity by her classmates, Thassa's joyful personality comes to the attention of the notorious geneticist and advocate for genomic enhancement, Thomas Kurton, whose research leads him to announce the genotype for happiness. Russell and Candace, now lovers, fail to protect Thassa from the growing media circus. Thassa's congenital optimism is soon severely tested. Devoured by the public as a living prophecy, her genetic secret will transform both Russell and Kurton, as well as the country at large. What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and finally magical, "Generosity "celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence.

理查德·鲍尔斯（Richard Powers，1957- ），美国当代小说家，后现代派小说的后起之秀。1998年当选美国艺术与科学院院士，现任大学英语系教授兼高级研究院研究员。2006年凭借《回声制造者》获得美国国家图书奖。其他重要作品包括：《我们歌唱的时代》《冲破黑暗》《赢利》《葛拉蒂2.2》《囚犯的困境》《三个农民去舞会》等。鲍尔斯那些由理念推动的小说，背后富有无穷的张力，这很大程度上来自情节与概念之间的微妙平衡。