Donna Tartt was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and educated at the University of Mississippi and Bennington College. She is a novelist, essayist, and critic. THE SECRET HISTORY has been translated into twenty-four languages.
A thriller in the Daphne du Maurier vein, Tartt's debut novel charts the death of innocence among a group of over-privileged New England students. The narrator, Richard Papen, is easily seduced by the snobberies of the classics school at Hampden College, Vermont but - vainly - tries to hold firm against debauchery and murder. (Kirkus UK)