Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo is an Israeli-American fantasy author. She is best known for her young adult Grishaverse novels, which include the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, and the King of Scars duology. She also received acclaim for her paranormal fantasy adult debut, Ninth House. The Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows series have been adapted into Shadow and Bone by Netflix, and Amazon Studios will adapt Ninth House; Bardugo is an executive producer on both works.

Bardugo was born in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1975 and grew up in Los Angeles, California, U.S., where her grandparents raised her. She is secular Jewish, of Moroccan Jewish descent on her father's side, and of Ashkenazi Jewish (Russian-Jewish and Lithuanian-Jewish) descent on her mother's side. She attended Yale University, graduating with a degree in English in the spring of 1997. She was a member of the Wolf's Head secret society. 

Before publishing her first novel, she worked in copywriting and journalism, as well as makeup and special effects. Bardugo's debut novel, Shadow and Bone, the first book in the Grisha trilogy, was published in 2012 by Macmillan. Shadow and Bone were nominated for the Romantic Times Book Award and the South Carolina Children's Book Award, named an Indie Next List Book and reviewed in The New York Times. 

The novel hit #8 on The New York Times Best Seller list and had been optioned for film by David Heyman and DreamWorks. The other books in the trilogy, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, were published by Macmillan in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Bardugo defines Shadow and Bone genre as Tsarpunk - a fantasy inspired by early 19th century Russia.

The Six of Crows duology (Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom) was published by Macmillan in 2015 and 2016. It is set in the same universe as the Grisha trilogy (sometimes collectively called the "Grishaverse"). Six of Crows was named a New York Times Notable Book and an ALA-YALSA Top Ten Pick of 2016. The Language of Thorns, a collection of Grisha fairy tales and folk tales, was published by Macmillan in 2017.

Bardugo then wrote the first book in the DC Icons series, which are novelizations of DC Comics' biggest superheroes; her Wonder Woman: Warbringer was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. In 2019, Bardugo's first adult novel, Ninth House, was published by Flatiron Books. It won the 2019 Goodreads Choice Award for the best fantasy novel. In January 2023, she published the sequel to Ninth House, Hell Bent.

Bardugo also has essays and short stories in anthology collections such as Last Night; A Superhero Saved My Life, Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, and Summer Days and Summer Nights. Her books have been translated into 22 languages and published in over 50 countries. Bardugo appeared on a Grishaverse panel alongside showrunner Heisserer at New York Comic Con in October 2020. She was ranked the sixth most popular author between 2016 and 2021 on Goodreads.