Elizabeth Johnson Kostova (born December 26, 1964) is an American author best known for her debut novel The Historian.

Early life

Elizabeth Johnson Kostova was born Elizabeth Johnson in New London, Connecticut, and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she graduated from the Webb School of Knoxville. She received her undergraduate degree from Yale University

She is married to a Bulgarian IT professional and has taken his family name. Her sister, Victoria Johnson, is also an author.

Career

The Historian

Kostova's interest in the Dracula legend began with the stories her father told her about the vampire when she was a child. She "was fascinated by [her father's Dracula stories] because they were ... from history in a way, even though they weren't about real history, but I heard them in these beautiful historic places." Kostova's interest in books and libraries began early as well. Her mother, a librarian, frequently took her and her sisters to the public library—they were each allowed to check out 30 books and had a special shelf for their library books.

As a child, she listened to recordings of Bulgarian folk music and became interested in the tradition. As an undergraduate at Yale, she sang in and directed a Slavic chorus. In 1989, she and some friends traveled to Eastern Europe, specifically Bulgaria and Bosnia, to study local musical customs. The recordings they made will be deposited in the Library of Congress. She immediately scratched out seven pages of notes into her writer's notebook. Two days later, she started work on the novel. In order to write the book, she did extensive research about Eastern Europe and Vlad Țepeș.

Kostova finished the novel in January 2004 and sent it out to a potential literary agent in March. The rights to the book were then auctioned off and Little, Brown and Company bought it for US$2 million (US$30,000 is typical for a first novel from an unknown author). Publishers Weekly explained the high price as a bidding war between firms believing that they might have the next Da Vinci Code within their grasp. One vice-president and associate publisher said "Given the success of The Da Vinci Code, everybody around town knows how popular the combination of thriller and history can be and what a phenomenon it can become." Little, Brown, and Co. subsequently sold the rights in 28 countries. The book was published in the United States on June 14, 2005.

The novel blends the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula and has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novel, adventure novel, detective fiction, travelogue, postmodern historical novel, epistolary epic, and historical thriller. Kostova was intent on writing a serious work of literature and saw herself as an inheritor of the Victorian style. The novel is concerned with questions about history, its role in society, and how it is represented in books, as well as the nature of good and evil. The evils brought about by religious conflict are a particular theme and the novel explores the relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic East.

Little, Brown, and Company heavily promoted the book and it became the first debut novel to land at number one on The New York Times bestseller list and as of 2005 was the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in US history. In general, the reviews of the novel were mixed. Several reviewers noted that she described the setting of her novel well. However, some reviewers criticized the book's structure and its lack of tonal variety. Kostova received the 2006 Book Sense Book of the Year award for Best Adult Fiction and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. Sony bought the film rights to the novel for $1.5 million.

Kostova released her second novel The Swan Thieves on January 12, 2010. Her third novel, The Shadow Land, was released in 2017.

Works

  • The Historian (2005) ,
  • The Swan Thieves (2010) ,
  • The Shadow Land (2017) ,

Notes

  • Elizabeth Kostova Official Website
  • Elizabeth Kostova Foundation