It's just the latest honor for Richard Powers, 71, a 1989 MacArthur genius grant recipient and 2006 National Book Award winner. It had been 60 years since a University of Illinois alum was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — Robert Lewis Taylor, from the Class of 1933. Monday, it happened for a second time, when Richard Powers ('78) received one of writing's highest honors for his 2018 novel, "The Overstory." read more