Leif Enger

Leif Enger is an American novelist born in 1961 and raised in Osakis, Minnesota. He studied English and mass communication at Minnesota State University Moorhead and worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio through the 1980s and into the 1990s; earlier in his career he co-wrote mystery novels with his brother Lin under the pen name L. L. Enger. His solo debut, Peace Like a River, won the American Library Association's Alex Award and established the plainspoken, lyrical style he carried through So Brave, Young, and Handsome, Virgil Wander, and I Cheerfully Refuse (2024). He and his wife raised their two sons on a farm outside Aitkin, Minnesota, before relocating to Duluth in 2018.