Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt was born and raised in Mississippi, the daughter of a musician and a secretary. Both of Tartt’s parents were voracious readers and instilled in her a lifelong love for books and writing. Tartt started writing at the age of five and had already published a poem in The Mississippi Review by age 13. In 1981, Tartt began attending the University of Mississippi before transferring to Bennington College in 1982. Tartt’s peer group at Bennington is now legendary, as it consisted of fellow authors Johnathan Lethem, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jill Eisenstadt. After college, Tartt split her time between Boston and New York while working on the novel that would eventually become The Secret History. The Secret History was finally published in 1992 to rave reviews, and it turned Tartt into a literary celebrity. Tartt was hailed as a literary genius and her next book was eagerly awaited. However, the follow-up to The Secret History wouldn’t come for another 10 years. Eventually, it arrived in 2002 with the title The Little Friend. Though it is the least popular and acclaimed of Tartt’s novels, The Little Friend was still very successful and well-liked. After The Little Friend’s publication, another decade went by without a new Tartt novel. Then, in 2013, Tartt published The Goldfinch, which is now her best-known and most critically acclaimed novel. The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was eventually adapted into a film in 2019.