Veronica Roth Biography

• The Divergent trilogy:
  • Divergent (2011)
  • Insurgent (2012)
  • Allegiant (2013)
• Divergent related publications:
  • The World of Divergent: The Path to Allegiant (2013)
  • Four: A Divergent Collection (2014), serves as prequel to the trilogy
• The Shards and Ashes anthology:
  • Hearken (2013), a short story

Veronica Roth, (born August 19, 1988, New York, New York, U.S.) American writer known for her Divergent trilogy of science-fiction novels for young adults, which unfolds as a coming-of-age story set in a postapocalyptic Chicago.

Roth, who grew up in Barrington, Illinois, began writing at an early age and was an avid reader. She was a fan of the works of writer Lois Lowry, especially of Lowry’s The Giver (1993), often cited as the original young-adult dystopian novel. When Roth reached high school, she became a practicing Christian. Her path to religion was a theme that she often referenced in her novels. Prior to graduating (2010) from Northwestern University, where she studied creative writing, Roth penned Divergent, the first installment in the trilogy, over winter break during her senior year.

Roth took her manuscript to a writers conference in March 2010 and secured an agent. The book was sold the following month to HarperCollins. It debuted in 2011 at number six on the New York Times best-seller list. Insurgent, released in 2012, captured the number one spot on that list. Roth had clearly hit her stride at the right moment—the niche market for dystopian novels was blossoming, and her offerings came on the heels of the popular Twilight and Hunger Games young-adult series. Roth’s fan base grew quickly, and when Allegiant came out in 2013, it became the most-preordered book ever issued by HarperCollins. The trilogy was a huge commercial success, with more than 30 million copies sold by 2015.

The Divergent series features 16-year-old heroine Beatrice (“Tris”) Prior, who does not fit easily into a single faction designated for citizens when they reach the age of 16. The factions are not separated by class or race but by values or virtues: Dauntless (boldness), Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peacefulness), Candor (honesty), and Erudite (intellectuality). Tris, who is living secretly as a “divergent” (someone who fits into more than one group), decides to leave the faction in which she was reared (Abnegation) for Dauntless. The series follows Tris’s exploration of her identity and her relationship with the character Tobias (“Four”) Eaton, the leader of her new faction. In 2014 Roth published Four: A Divergent Collection, a companion volume that tells the story of the trilogy, as well as events preceding the main narrative, from the perspective of Four.

A film adaptation of the first book, also titled Divergent, was released in 2014. A box-office success, it led to the sequels Insurgent (2015) and The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016).