Generosity: An Enhancement
2009 novel by Richard Powers
Generosity: An Enhancement is the tenth novel by American author Richard Powers. Like other Powers novels it is idea-driven, strongly focusing on social alienation and scientific progress. The novel employs metafiction, including real-time intrusions by the narrator who explicitly sets the novel in a "parallel" Chicago.
Generosity tells the story of Thassadit "Thassa" Amzwar, an Algerian refugee who seemingly has overwhelming happiness ("hyperthymia") written in her genes, and the confounding effects she has on those around her, both sincere and exploitive.
Plot summary
Thassa is taking a class in creative non-fiction writing taught by Russell Stone. Her boundless happiness leads the class to dub her "Miss Generosity", but puzzles and disturbs Stone, who discusses Thassa with a college counselor, Candace Weld.
A classmate tries to rape Thassa one evening, she cheerfully talks him out of it, and he turns himself in for attempted rape. Police questioning leads to news of Thassa's "condition" becoming known, and her story becomes an Internet hit. A media circus and a scientific frenzy, led by geneticist Thomas Kurton, converge on her. Stone and Weld become lovers.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2009 novel by Richard Powers. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18151531. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Generosity: An Enhancement” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.