The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley has written on such topics as politics, impulse buying, farming and marriage. She now adds John Atanasoff, the Iowa State physics professor credited with inventing the first digital electronic computer, to that list. Her body of work includes a dozen books of fiction, including A Thousand Acres and her 2010 novel, Private Life; four books of nonfiction; and essays and short stories appearing in such publications as Harper's, The Nation, Vogue and The New Yorker. Smiley earned an MFA and PhD from the University of Iowa and previously taught at Iowa State University as a distinguished professor of English. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. Part of the National Affairs Series on Innovation.