Justin Cronin is a highly acclaimed American author, best known for his horror and science fiction novels. He was born in 1962 in New England and spent his childhood and adolescent years in the same region. Cronin's love for literature led him to attend Harvard University for his undergraduate studies. After completing his bachelor's degree, he went on to attend the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop, a creative graduate-level writing program at the University of Iowa.
Cronin gained significant recognition in 2010 with the publication of his novel, "The Passage." The book was a critical and commercial success, drawing comparisons to the works of Cormac McCarthy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood. It spent three months on The New York Times bestseller list and was featured on numerous "Best of the Year" lists, including Time's "Top 10 Fiction of 2010." "The Passage" was also a #1 Indie Next Selection and sold in over 40 countries, becoming a bestseller in many of them. Stephen King praised the book as "enthralling," encouraging readers to "read this book and the ordinary world disappears."
Cronin is also the author of "Mary and O'Neil," which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize. His other works include "The Summer Guest" and the final book in the Passage trilogy, "The City of Mirrors." Cronin has received several other honors for his writing, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writer's Award. He is currently a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University and divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.