Elizabeth E. Wein


Elizabeth E. Wein is an American-born writer best known for her young adult historical fiction. She holds both American and British citizenship.

Personal life

Elizabeth E. Wein was born in New York City, New York on October 2, 1964. She moved to England when she was three. When she was six, her father, Norman Wein, was sent to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, where she lived from 1970 to 1973. As a child, she was fluent in Jamaican patois.
Wein moved back to the United States when her parents separated, and she was raised by her mother Carol Flocken in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania until her death in a car accident in 1978, after which Wein lived with her maternal grandparents. She wrote her first novel at age 11. Wein attended Yale University and, after a year of work-study in England, spent seven years getting a PhD in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. Wein moved to England with her English husband Tim in 1995 and settled in Scotland in 2000. She and Tim have two children.
Wein has a passion for planes, and she possesses a private pilot licence which she received in 2003.

Writing career

Wein's first five books recount a version of the King Arthur stories which moves the narrative to the kingdom of Aksum in 6th century Ethiopia. The stories focus on her interpretation of Medraut and his half-Aksumite, half-British son Telemakos.
Her 2012 novel, Code Name Verity, is a World War II thriller focusing on the friendship between two young British women, a transport pilot and a spy. It received critical acclaim; it was awarded an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel and designated a Michael L. Printz Award Honor book in 2013. A follow-up novel, Rose Under Fire, also set in World War II, tells the story of an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot who is captured and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Wein's short stories have been published in collections edited by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, and Sharyn November. She is a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review.

Works

Novels

  1. The Winter Prince
  2. A Coalition of Lions
  3. The Sunbird
  4. The Mark of Solomon 1: The Lion Hunter
  5. The Mark of Solomon 2: The Empty Kingdom

    Short stories