Delia Owens, "Where The Crawdads Sing"

A wildlife scientist, Owens has published three nonfiction books about her life and work in Africa, and her evocative prose earned her the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing. Her bestselling debut novel is a magical blending of her acute observations of the natural world and a lyrical imagination. Set on the North Carolina coast in the 1950s and ‘60s, the narrative focuses on Kya Clark, a young woman who grew up alone in the wetlands. Known as the Marsh Girl, she found in nature the nurturance that her dysfunctional family denied her, but as she gets older, she tentatively reaches out to the people around her. Then a man’s body is found in the water and Kya is the prime suspect.

Delia Owens is the coauthor of three internationally bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist in Africa. She holds a BS in Zoology from the University of Georgia and a PhD in Animal Behavior from the University of California at Davis. She has won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing and has been published in Nature, The African Journal of Ecology, and International Wildlife, among many others. She lives in the mountains of North Carolina. Where the Crawdads Sing is her first novel.

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