11 JUL 1984
Marie Lu was born Xiwei Lu in Xianwaxi, China. She and her family moved to the United States when she was five years old. She spent the rest of her childhood in Georgia, where she continued to dream up stories and write short stories. She finished her first full manuscript at the age of 14, and it was only a matter of time until her first novel was published. She attended the University of Southern California and immediately after her graduation she went to work for Disney in their videogames department. She then spent a few years working on games for Facebook before becoming a full time writer.
Marie Lu is the author of the bestselling Legend series for young adults. It peaked at number 8 on the New York Times list of bestsellers and was critically acclaimed by both adult and teenage reviewers. It led the way for the two other books in the series, Prodigy and Champion, to become internationally acclaimed, along with Lu’s later novels.
She loves dystopian novels
and has been influenced by many of the great dystopian writers, including Orwell and Huxley. She herself considers it very ironic that she was born in 1984! She has said in interview that her original inspiration for the main character in Legend came from the relationship between ValJean and Javert in Les Miserables.
She now resides in LA, California where she continues to write dystopian novels for teenagers and young adults full time. Marie Lu lives with her boyfriend in Pasadena with two Welsh Corgis and a Chihuahua cross.
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