Tracy Rose Chevalier is an American-British novelist, born on October 19, 1962. She is renowned for her historical novels and gained widespread recognition with her second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was adapted into a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.

Chevalier was the youngest of three children and grew up in Washington, DC. Her father worked as a photographer for The Washington Post. During her childhood, she was an avid reader, enjoying works by authors such as Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle, and Susan Cooper.

She pursued higher education at Oberlin College in Ohio, earning a BA in English in 1984, and later achieved an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, in 1994.