Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE, more commonly known as Terry Pratchett, was an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best-known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he wrote two books a year on average.

Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and as of December 2007 had sold more than 55 million books worldwide, with translations made into 36 languages. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2001, he won the Carnegie Medal for his young adult novel The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

With more than 100 million books sold worldwide in 43 languages, Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s. In 2007, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He later made a substantial public donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust and became a patron of the organization. He died on 12 March 2015, at the age of 66.