born Feb. 18, 1909, Lake Mills, Iowa, U.S.
died April 13, 1993, Santa Fe, N.M.
U.S. writer.
Stegner studied at the University of Iowa and later taught at several universities, notably Stanford. The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943), a novel about a family traveling around the West seeking their fortune, was his first critical and popular success. His later novels include A Shooting Star (1961), Angle of Repose (1971, Pulitzer Prize), and The Spectator Bird (1976, National Book Award). His nonfiction includes two histories of the settlement of Utah, Mormon Country (1942) and The Gathering of Zion (1964), and Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954), a biography of John Wesley Powell .