Laurie Halse Anderson

Biography

Laurie Halse Anderson (b. 1961) is best known for Speak (1999), a novel about a teenage sexual assault survivor that became one of the most taught — and most banned — books in American schools. Anderson is drawn to stories about young people who are silenced by systems of power and who must find their voices in order to survive. She spent years researching the historical conditions of slavery in Revolutionary-era New York for Chains, working with primary sources, slave narratives, and the archives of the New-York Historical Society. The novel is the first in a trilogy (Chains, Forge, Ashes) that follows Isabel and Curzon through the American Revolution.

Laurie Halse Anderson at a glance