Hanya Yanagihara

Hanya Yanagihara was born in Los Angeles in 1974 and raised in Hawaii, with Japanese heritage from her father's side. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts, she worked for several years in New York City in the communications field, as well as a travel journalist and editor at "Conde Nast Traveller" magazine. In 2015, having already published two successful novels, she took on the role of editor-in-chief at "T: The New York Times Style Magazine" (she dismissed criticisms of her dual involvement in fashion and literature, stating that "the publishing world is a small provincial community, about as snobbish as the fashion world"). Her first novel, "The People in the Trees" (2013, Greek edition: "Οι άνθρωποι στα δέντρα", Metaichmio 2018), inspired by the life of the researcher of rare degenerative diseases in animals and humans, Nobel laureate Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, was nominated for the Dylan Thomas Prize and was recognized as a book of the year by "Independent," "Huffington Post," "The Wall Street Journal," and "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Her second novel, "A Little Life" (2015, Greek edition: "Λίγη ζωή", Metaichmio 2016), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in the UK and the National Book Award in the USA, won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, and became a publishing success. She lives and works in New York City.