Elizabeth Kostova
| Elizabeth Kostova | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
December 26, 1964 New London, Connecticut, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
Yale University University of Michigan |
| Period | 1980–present |
| Genre | Historical, Gothic |
| Notable works | The Historian |
| Website | |
| www |
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Elizabeth Johnson Kostova (born December 26, 1964) is an American author best known for her debut novel The Historian.
Elizabeth Johnson Kostova was born Elizabeth Johnson in New London, Connecticut and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee where she graduated from the Webb School of Knoxville. She received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan, where she won the 2003 Hopwood Award for her Novel-in-Progress. She is married to a Bulgarian computer programmer.
Kostova's interest in the Dracula legend began with the stories her father told her about the vampire when she was a child. The family lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1972, while her father was teaching at a local university; during that year, the family traveled across Europe. According to Kostova, "It was the formative experience of my childhood." She "was fascinated by [her father's Dracula stories] because they were ... from history in a way, even though they weren't about real history, but I heard them in these beautiful historic places." Kostova's interest in books and libraries began early as well. Her mother, a librarian, frequently took her and her sisters to the public library—they were each allowed to check out 30 books and had a special shelf for their library books.
As a child, she listened to recordings of Bulgarian folk music and became interested in the tradition. As an undergraduate at Yale, she sang in and directed a Slavic chorus. In 1989, she and some friends traveled to Eastern Europe, specifically Bulgaria and Bosnia, to study local musical customs. The recordings they made will be deposited in the Library of Congress. While Kostova was in Europe, the Berlin Wall collapsed, heralding the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, events which shaped her understanding of history.
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