Powers, J. F.

Powers, J. F. (James Farl) (1917–  ) writer; born in Jacksonville, Ill. A socially concerned Catholic, he was jailed during World War II for resisting induction on pacifist grounds; he was also stirred by injustices against blacks. His major interest in fiction became the realistic, often wryly ironic depiction of priests' lives and conflicts, as in his prize-winning novel Morte d'Urban (1962) and in Wheat that Springeth Green (1988). He lived at intervals in Ireland but mostly in Minnesota, where he taught at St. John's College.