Donna Tartt is an American writer. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Literature and Publicism, the National Circle of Book Critics Prize, the Orange Literary Prize, the Malaparte Italian Literary Prize.
Tartt's creative biography began in the mid-1980s of the last century. During all this time, three novels and several short stories, audiobooks, and documentary sketches have been published. She is not chasing the number of works written. For Donna, the creative process is important. She believes that it is better to write one outstanding work that will go down in history than hundreds of books that many will never remember.
Biography facts
Donna was born in the winter of 1963 in the United States. Her father worked as a gas station, and her mother was an office secretary. Donna has a younger sister, Taylor.
As a child, the girl was not a very sociable child. She was often ill, so she mostly sat at home, surrounded by numerous relatives who were involved in her upbringing.
Having learned to read and write early, Donna, at the age of four, began keeping a diary, recording her observations there. At the age of five, the girl began to write her first poems, and then switched to short stories.
After going to school, Donna often missed classes due to illness. Soon it was decided to transfer her to home schooling. She had practically no friends, so she spent most of her time at home reading books and writing poetry or stories. When she was thirteen, her first short work was published in the Literaturnoe Obozreniye magazine.
In the early 1980s, Tartt entered the University of Mississippi. The teachers noticed her literary talent already in the first year. The girl brilliantly coped with any literary texts, and one of the professors even called her works brilliant.
After the first year, Tartt was advised to transfer to another educational institution, where there would be more opportunities to realize his literary talent. She did just that. And soon she became a student of the Faculty of Philology at Vermont College, choosing the specialty of classical literature.
Creative career
Donna began writing her first work, The Secret History, when she was still a student. After graduation, one of his friends introduced Donna to a well-known literary agent, with whom further cooperation continued for more than twenty years.
Thanks to the skillful work of the agent, within a few years a large publishing house bought the work of a young writer for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For the publication of the novel abroad, another five hundred thousand dollars was offered. The circulation of the book in the United States was seventy-five thousand copies.
The second novel was published in 2002. It was called "Little Friend". Like Tartt's first work, the book became an instant bestseller. In addition, the novel received a WH Smith award.
The third novel, The Goldfinch, was published in 2013. The plot was based on the story of a teenager who, together with his mother, found himself at the epicenter of a terrorist attack in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A dying museum minister asks the boy to save a very rare painting. He really takes out the picture, but, in fact, steals it, leaving it for himself. Many years later, he cannot get rid of the feeling of guilt, but, at the same time, the thirst for power and money does not allow him to confess to the crime.
In 2014, Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for The Goldfinch, as well as several other literary awards.
In the same year, Warner Bros. and RatPac Entertainment have begun negotiations to acquire the rights to film the novel. In 2017, Amazon joined the negotiations, promising to cover a third of the filming budget.
Work on the film began in 2018. It should be released on screens in 2019. Tartt received a $ 3 million royalty.
Personal life
Donna is now fifty-five years old, but she never got married. She has no children either. Perhaps one of the reasons is her parents' divorce, which she was going through very painfully. Donna herself says that you can write novels only alone, and the family only distracts from your favorite pastime and does not allow you to concentrate.
Donna currently lives on her own ranch with her beloved dog Luther and continues to engage in literary work.
