Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer, known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Highsmith wrotenovels, including her series of five novels with Tom Ripley as protagonist, and many short stories. Michael Dirda observed, Europeans honored her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favorite writers, in particular Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus.

Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas. She was the only child of artists Jay Bernard Plangman , who was of German descent, and Mary Plangman . The couple divorced ten days before their daughters birth. In 1927, Highsmith, her mother and her adoptive stepfather, artist Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother had married in 1924, moved to New York City. When she wasyears old, Highsmith was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her grandmother for a year. She called this the saddest year of her life and felt abandoned by her mother. She returned to New York to continue living with her mother and stepfather, primarily in Manhattan, but also in Astoria, Queens.

Source: Wikipedia