Libba Bray

Libba Bray is an American author of young adult fiction best known for her Gemma Doyle trilogy, beginning with A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003). Her novel Going Bovine (2009) won the Michael L. Printz Award in 2010. Going Bovine is a hallucinogenic road novel about a teenager dying of mad cow disease, drawing on the myth of Don Quixote. Bray's work spans multiple genres, from Victorian supernatural fiction to dystopian adventure to absurdist surrealism. Her other notable works include The Diviners series, a supernatural mystery set in 1920s New York, and Beauty Queens (2011), a satirical novel about beauty pageant contestants stranded on a desert island. Bray was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in various parts of Texas. She studied at the University of Texas at Austin and has lived in New York City for many years. She is one of the most inventive and genre-defying voices in YA literature.