Jeanne DuPrau

Biography

Jeanne DuPrau (born 1944) worked as a teacher, an editor, and a technical writer before publishing The City of Ember at age fifty-nine. She had written nonfiction and educational materials for decades but had not published fiction. The novel grew from her longstanding interest in sustainability, post-apocalyptic scenarios, and the question of how civilizations manage — or fail to manage — the transition from one energy source to another. She has described the book as a response to her concerns about environmental fragility and the human tendency to deny resource depletion until crisis arrives. DuPrau wrote three sequels: The People of Sparks (2004), The Prophet of Yonwood (2006), and The Diamond of Darkhold (2008).

Jeanne DuPrau at a glance