Russell Banks, a prolific author whose description of working-class Americans grappling with issues of poverty, race and class placed him in the top echelon of contemporary novelists had an estimated net worth of $5 million at time of death.
His stories were usually crafted around his own childhood experiences, and often reflected “moral themes and personal relationships”.
His works have been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards.
He has written fiction, and more recently, non-fiction, with Dreaming up America.
He will be best remembered for the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter, and Affliction.
The latter two novels were each made into feature films in 1997 (The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction).
The theme of a lot of his stories revolved around people who faced tough times and struggle in their daily lives but persevered and showed strong resilience and strength to make it against all odds.
Banks also wrote short stories, some of which appeared in the collection The Angel on the Roof, as well as poetry.
He was a member of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.