Anne Tyler is an acclaimed American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic, born on October 25, 1941 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and graduated at nineteen from Duke University before pursuing graduate studies in Russian at Columbia University.

Tyler has an impressive literary career, having published twenty-four novels. Some of her most notable works include Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three novels were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, with Breathing Lessons winning the prestigious award in 1989.

Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and Redhead By the Side of the Road was longlisted for the same award in 2020.

Anne Tyler is celebrated for her fully developed characters, her "brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail", and her "rigorous and artful style". She has been compared to literary legends like John Updike, Jane Austen, and Eudora Welty. Over her career, she has received numerous accolades, including the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.