Francine Prose is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She was born on April 1, 1947. Prose is a visiting professor of literature at Bard College and a former president of PEN American Center.

She has authored twenty works of fiction. Her novel A Changed Man won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her notable works of nonfiction include Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. She has received numerous accolades, including a Guggenheim and Fulbright grant, and is a Director's Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Francine Prose is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Some of her published works include Judah the Pious (1973), The Glorious Ones (1974), and Hunters and Gatherers (1997), among others.