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Elizabeth Kostova

Born:	December 26, 1964 New London, Connecticut
Occupation:	Novelist
Nationality:	United States
Writing period:	1995 - present
Genres:	Historical adventure

Elizabeth Johnson Kostova (born December 26, 1964) is an American author.

Elizabeth Johnson was born in New London, Connecticut and is a graduate of Yale University. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress. Her first novel, The Historian, was published in 2005, and it has become a best-seller.

Set in four time periods - 1930s, the 1950s, around 1973, and the author's "present day", 2008 - this intriguing book tells the interweaving stories of a young girl in a quest over many parts of Europe to find out about her father's travels in the 1950s and beyond, in addition to those of his mentor, Professor Rossi, in the 1930s; to unravel the secrets her father and Professor Rossi has discovered; and, in the 1970s, to find her father who has disappeared ostensibly searching for her missing mother, about whom she knows almost nothing.

She wrote The Historian over the course of ten years. The initial flame was sparked by stories told to her by her father, a professor, who used to regale her with stories of the vampiric kind while travelling Europe. Kostova was inspired to base much of the book in Bulgaria by her Bulgarian husband Georgi Kostov.^[1]

The rights to publish The Historian were purchased by Little, Brown and Co. for $2 million. Sony has since purchased the movie rights for $1.5 million. Douglas Wick, producer of Memoirs of a Geisha and Gladiator has signed on to produce the film.

In late 2006, Kostova is engaged on an international book tour for The Historian's paperback version. It has been published in 28 different languages.

• The Historian

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