Veronica Roth is an American novelist and short story writer, born in New York City in 1988, who is best known for the Divergent trilogy, a young adult dystopian series set in a future Chicago. The trilogy has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide and was adapted into a series of films.
Roth was raised mainly in Barrington, Illinois. After a year at Carleton College she transferred to Northwestern University for its creative writing programme. She wrote “Divergent” during the winter break of her final year and sold the publishing rights before she graduated in 2010. The novel came out in April 2011, by which time the film rights had also been sold.
“Divergent” is set in a society divided into five factions, each devoted to a single virtue, and follows Beatrice “Tris” Prior, who is born into Abnegation and transfers to Dauntless. “Insurgent” (2012) and “Allegiant” (2013) completed the trilogy, and “Four” (2014) collects stories told from the point of view of Tobias Eaton. The first book won the Goodreads Choice Award for Favourite Book of 2011. Film versions of the three novels, starring Shailene Woodley as Tris, were released in 2014, 2015 and 2016. A planned fourth film was cancelled.
Her next young adult work was the science fiction duology “Carve the Mark” (2017) and “The Fates Divide” (2018), followed by the story collection “The End and Other Beginnings” (2019). “Chosen Ones” (2020) follows five people who were singled out by a prophecy as teenagers to defeat a figure called the Dark One, and what becomes of them fifteen years later. She has since published “Poster Girl” (2022), “Arch-Conspirator” (2023) and the Curse Bearer novellas “When Among Crows” (2024) and “To Clutch a Razor” (2025).
Two new series began in 2026. “Seek the Traitor’s Son”, published in May, is the first book of The Burning Empire, an adult dystopian fantasy duology. “The Sixth Faction”, published on 6 October 2026, returns to the world of Divergent as an alternate-universe retelling in which tragedy strikes at Tris’s choosing ceremony and her life takes a different course. Its sequel, “The Last Testimony”, is scheduled for February 2027. Roth married the photographer Nelson Fitch in 2011 and lives in Chicago.
