American · b. 1957
Lionel Shriver writes novels that start arguments. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (2005) won the Orange Prize for its epistolary account of a school massacre from the killer's mother's perspective; readers still debate whether Kevin was born evil or made. "The Post-Birthday World" (2007) follows two parallel lives from a single choice—to kiss or not to kiss. "So Much for That" (2010) anatomizes the American healthcare system through a family's catastrophe. Shriver courts controversy in her journalism; her fiction earns its provocations through craft.