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Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May 1935) is an English-born American 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.〔 For that work, in 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association recognizing her contribution to writing for teens.〔 In the 1970s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language book with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council.〔 == Biography == Cooper was born in 1935 in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, to John Richard Cooper and his wife Ethel Maybelle, ''nee'' Field.〔 Her father had worked in the reading room of the Natural History Museum until going off to fight in the First World War, from which he returned with a wounded leg. He then pursued a career in the offices of the Great Western Railway. Her mother was a teacher of ten-year-olds and eventually became deputy head of a large school. Her younger brother Roderick also grew up to become a writer.〔 Cooper lived in Buckinghamshire, until she was 21, when her parents moved to her grandmother's village of Aberdovey in Wales. She attended Slough High School and then earned a degree in English from the University of Oxford, where she was the first woman to edit the undergraduate newspaper ''Cherwell''.〔Charles Butler, (''Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper'' ) (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), page 14.〕 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.〔 Cooper emigrated to the United States in 1963 to marry Nicholas J. Grant, Professor of Metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a widower with three teenage children.〔 She had two children with him, Jonathan Roderick Howard Grant (b. 1965) and Katharine Mary Grant (b. 1966; later Katharine Glennon). She then became a full-time writer, focusing on ''The Dark Is Rising'' and on ''Dawn of Fear'' (1970), a novel based on her experiences of the Second World War. Eventually she wrote fiction for both children and adults, a series of picture books, film screenplays, and works for the stage. Around the time of writing ''Seaward'' (1983), both of her parents died and her marriage to Grant was dissolved.〔 In July 1996, she married the Canadian-American actor, and her sometime co-author, Hume Cronyn, the widower of Jessica Tandy. (Cronyn and Tandy had starred in the Broadway production of ''Foxfire'', written by Cooper and Cronyn, and staged in 1982.)〔 Cooper and Cronyn remained married until his death in June 2003. Hollywood adapted ''The Dark Is Rising'' (1973) as a film in 2007, ''The Seeker''.〔 Retrieved 2012-03-25.〕 It disappointed Cooper, who requested that some changes from her narrative be reverted, to no avail.〔 Cooper was on the Board of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance (NCBLA), a U.S. nonprofit organization that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries (2006〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html )〕-2012〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html )〕). She lived in Marshfield, Massachusetts as of October 2012.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Susan Cooper」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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