diff --git a/cpp/graph_powerlaw.hpp b/cpp/graph_powerlaw.hpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..9d6981eaef64d669f6d06bdf6f604698a532eaa7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cpp/graph_powerlaw.hpp
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+#pragma once
+#include "graph.hpp"
+#include "powerlaw.hpp"
+#include <algorithm>
+#include <iostream>
+
+template <typename RNG>
+void generatePowerlawGraph(int n, float tau, Graph& g, DegreeSequence& ds,
+                           RNG& rng) {
+    ds.resize(n);
+    powerlaw_distribution degDist(tau, 1, n);
+
+    // Generate a graph
+    // might require multiple tries
+    for (int i = 1;; ++i) {
+        std::generate(ds.begin(), ds.end(),
+                      [&degDist, &rng] { return degDist(rng); });
+        // First make the sum even
+        unsigned int sum = std::accumulate(ds.begin(), ds.end(), 0);
+        if (sum % 2) {
+            continue;
+            // Can we do this: ??
+            ds.back()++;
+        }
+
+        if (g.createFromDegreeSequence(ds))
+            break;
+
+        // When 10 tries have not worked, output a warning
+        if (i % 10 == 0) {
+            std::cerr << "Warning: could not create graph from "
+                         "degree sequence. Trying again...\n";
+        }
+    }
+}