Born in Germany, Douglas grew up in Vancouver, and studied art and design in B.C., Italy and Japan.
His breakout novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, was an international bestseller and became a pop culture phenomenon. Since then, he has written 11 more novels, including Shampoo Planet, Life After God, Microserfs and Hey Nostradamus!, which won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction. His non-fiction books include Polaroids from the Dead , Terry: The Life of Terry Fox, and Souvenir of Canada.
In other media, Douglas has written an original screenplay for the feature film Everything's Gone Green (2006) and adapted his novel jPod for a CBC-TV series in 2007. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. He's also a frequent commentator on popular culture and technology, with pieces in the New York Times, the New Republic and ArtForum.
With Generation X , Douglas Coupland didn't just write a book that sold wildly in North America and around the world. He changed the way people viewed an entire generation, while coining such unforgettable terms as "McJob" and "poverty jet set." The novel serves up angst with a generous helping of wit, and is both entertaining and illuminating.
Andy, Dag and Claire have cut themselves loose from their home towns and live in adjacent cottages in Palm Springs, California. They're connected by their friendship and by the feeling that the world is passing them by, but that dropping out is still the only sensible solution.
Oppressed by the successes of their yuppie elders and by a sense of their own "futurelessness," the trio juggles their anxieties, their diminishing expectations and their cynicism. Bored by their dead-end service jobs, they spend time driving around in an old Saab and sipping cocktails, while trading stories real and imagined to try to make sense of life.
Countless young readers across North America identified with Coupland's characters when the book came out in 1991, and their story continues to resonate with readers from new generations.
Roland Pemberton (a.k.a. Cadence Weapon) is defending Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture for Canada Reads.