Literature
Ruta Sepetys
born 1967 · historical novelist
Carnegie Medal–winning author of Between Shades of Gray, born in Detroit to a Lithuanian refugee family and raised in the city's northwestern suburbs.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 58- Also known as
- Rūta Šepetys
- Detroit years
- 1967–1980s
- Field
- Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Sepetys was born in Detroit into a Lithuanian family: her father had fled the Soviet occupation as a child, spent years in refugee camps and settled in Detroit, where her grandfather found work as an engineer. She grew up in the northwestern suburbs of Detroit, surrounded by the stories of the Lithuanian diaspora. After a career in the music business she turned to fiction, and her debut Between Shades of Gray (2011), about the Soviet deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia, became an international bestseller. Salt to the Sea (2016), about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, won the Carnegie Medal, and her books have been published in more than sixty countries.
Highlights
- Between Shades of Gray (2011), filmed as Ashes in the Snow (2018)
- Carnegie Medal (2017) for Salt to the Sea
- The Fountains of Silence (2019) and I Must Betray You (2022)
- First American YA author to address the European Parliament