born March 28, 1940, Newton, Mass., U.S.
U.S. novelist.
Banks was associated in the 1960s with Lillabulero Press and has taught at various colleges and universities. He attracted wide attention with Continental Drift (1985), inspired by a stint in Jamaica; his later novels, which, like his earlier works, often portray characters trapped by economic and social forces they do not understand, include Affliction (1989; film, 1998), The Sweet Hereafter (1991; film, 1997), and Cloudsplitter (1998), a historical novel about the abolitionist John Brown .