About Flowers for Algernon

Charley Gordon is a mentally challenged man who longs to be as smart as those around him. He volunteers for experimental surgery that makes him a genius, but soon his new capacity for understanding uncovers memories of cruel rejection and a realization that his “friends” were only using him for a laugh. Charley tells his own story, and the range of emotions is intense and powerful as he first realizes his new intelligence, and then watches in helpless horror as the effects of the experiment begin to wear off.

Flowers for Algernon won a Hugo Award as a short story, and then earned a Nebula award when it was extended to a novel. The beloved book has reached beyond the Science Fiction genre, as readers became
captivated with the touching drama of Charley Gordon.

The story has been widely adapted, most memorably in the 1968 film, Charly, for which Cliff Robertson won an Oscar. More recently,
Flowers for Algernon inspired a 2000 TV movie starring Matthew Modine, an eleven-episode drama series for Japanese television, and a 2006 Japanese musical.

About Author Daniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 9, 1927. He was educated at Brooklyn College, where he received an A.B. degree in 1950. After graduation, Keyes worked briefly as an associate editor for the magazine Marvel Science Fiction while pursuing his own writing career; he later taught high school English in Brooklyn. In 1952 he married Aurea Georgina Vazquez, with whom he had three children. Keyes returned to Brooklyn College, received an A.M. degree in 1961, and went on to teach English on the university level, first at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and then at Ohio University, where in the 1970s he became Professor of English and director of the university's creative writing center.