Elizabeth Strout

Novelist and author

Elizabeth Strout is a prolific novelist and author whose work has been acclaimed both in the United States and abroad. She was born in Portland, Maine in 1956 and currently resides in New York City. Strout is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Olive Kitteridge, which was adapted into an HBO miniseries. Her other popular works include Amy and Isabelle, Abide with Me, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and The Burgess Boys. Her writing often takes the form of psychological character studies concerned with issues of family, identity, and conflicting perspectives. Strout’s writing style is praised for its attention to detail, realism, and unique insights into the complexities of human experience. Strout has received numerous honors for her writing, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Winship Award for Fiction, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the greatest of which is the Academy’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She has also been a National Book Award finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Strout’s works have been translated into more than twenty languages, and she regularly holds book signings, lectures and classes at universities nationwide. In addition to her literary acclaim, Strout also holds a position at the Olive Kitteridge Center at Maine’s Bowdoin College. She serves as a Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the college, helping to lead classes and discussions about literature, and to teach creative writing workshops. In 2018 the school dedicated an endowed chair to her, named the Elizabeth Strout ’78 and Jane K. Sward Lectureship in Creative Writing, which serves to bring notable authors and illustrators to the school annually. Strout has earned admiration among authors, critics and readers alike, owing to her skillful exploration of the human condition in her works. Her novels are marked by their simple yet vivid prose, threaded with insight and compassion.