Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May 1935) is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes.

Career and personal life

After graduating, she worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times (London) under Ian Fleming and wrote in her spare time. During that period she began work on the series The Dark Is Rising and finished her debut novel, the science fiction Mandrake, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1964. and also living in Cambridge.<!--LC cites her website, October 2012--> She is a member of First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Scituate.

Hollywood adapted The Dark Is Rising (1973) as a film in 2007, The Seeker.

Before she saw the film, Cooper stated that she had requested some changes to it, but had received no response.

In April 2017, Cooper gave the fifth annual Tolkien Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, speaking on the role of fantasy literature in contemporary society.

In 2019 she published The Shortest Day, based on her performance poem of the same title written for the Cambridge Christmas Revels in the 1970s. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020. In 2024, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.

She has also been recognised for single books:

  • 1974, Newbery Honor (runner-up for the Medal), The Dark Is Rising (1973 novel)
  • The Magic Maker: A Portrait of John Langstaff and His Christmas Revels (Candlewick Press, 2011) – juvenile biography of John Langstaff, founder of the Revels performances

Other nonfiction

  • Behind the Golden Curtain: A View of the USA (Hodder & Stoughton and Scribner's, 1965) – based on the Foxfire books

Cooper wrote four screenplays produced for television, one supernatural tale for children and three more adaptations of books about Appalachia (as Foxfire).

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Further reading

  • Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper, Charles Butler (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)
  • The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy, Leonard Marcus (Candlewick, 2006)
  • – official website with links to articles and interviews available online, at "About Writing for Children"
  • The NCBLA Board of Directors: Susan Cooper
  • Susan Cooper at FantasyLiterature – including synopses, cover art, and reviews

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