Orson Scott Card (born 24 August 1951) is an American writer best known for the science fiction novel “Ender’s Game” (1985) and its sequel “Speaker for the Dead” (1986), each of which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He is also the author of the fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker and has published more than 50 novels.
Card was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in California, Arizona and Utah. He studied theatre at Brigham Young University, where his plays were staged, served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil from 1971 and graduated in 1975. He later took a master’s degree in English at the University of Utah. The short story “Ender’s Game” appeared in Analog in August 1977, and in 1978 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His first novels, “Hot Sleep” and “A Planet Called Treason”, came out in 1979.
The novel “Ender’s Game” follows a young boy put through military training for a war in space, while “Speaker for the Dead” picks up Ender as an adult. “Xenocide” (1991) and “Children of the Mind” (1996) continued the story. In 1999 Card began a parallel sequence with “Ender’s Shadow”, told from the viewpoint of other characters and concluded by “The Last Shadow” (2021). The Formic Wars prequels, co-written with Aaron Johnston, were published between 2012 and 2019. A film of “Ender’s Game”, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013.
The Tales of Alvin Maker began with “Seventh Son” (1987), set in an alternate early America where Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, is born with unusual magical abilities. “Seventh Son” won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the series has taken several Locus Awards. The Homecoming Saga (1992 to 1995) is a science fiction adaptation of the Book of Mormon, and the Women of Genesis novels retell the lives of biblical women. His standalone books include “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus” (1996), “Lost Boys” (1992) and “Enchantment” (1999), a fantasy based on the Russian version of Sleeping Beauty.
In the 2010s Card wrote two young adult trilogies, Pathfinder and Mithermages. He received the Margaret Edwards Award in 2008 for his contribution to writing for teenagers. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. His recent books are “Reawakening” (2025), the second Side Step novel, and “Master Alvin” (2026), the seventh and final Alvin Maker book.
