American · b. 1986
Tara Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho, the youngest of seven children born to Mormon survivalists who kept her out of school and doctors' offices. She didn't set foot in a classroom until seventeen, teaching herself enough to pass the ACT and enter Brigham Young University. From there, she won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, earned a PhD in history from Cambridge, and became a visiting fellow at Harvard. Educated (2018), her first book, tells the story of that unlikely trajectory—and of the family she lost along the way. It spent over four years on bestseller lists and was named one of the decade's most important books. She lives in London, working on her second book.