Anne Tyler

An impeccable chronicler of the everyday lives of Middle America, author Anne Tyler grew up in a Quaker commune in the mountains of North Carolina, an experience, she says, that gave her, ‘that slight distance, so that I can look at the world as if I were a sociologist a little bit – I have that extra inch away from it.’ A multiple Pulitzer Prize nominee (she won the prize in 1989 for Breathing Lessons) Tyler’s novels are as popular as they are publically lauded, many of them set in Maryland, Baltimore where she now lives. Famously shy of publicity - she spent 40 years of her career without giving a single interview - Tyler is a prolific writer whose novels span half a decade. Her best-known works include: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, Ladder of Years, Digging to America and A Spool of Thread.