“In Shadow and Bone,' Alina's race is never specified. But that entire book is basically built on a white default. My life has never been entirely white or entirely straight, so I had to really step back and question why I'd chosen to write my first novel that way.”

American fantasy author

Leigh Bardugo is an American fantasy author best known for her young adult Grishaverse novels, including the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows and King of Scars duologies. She is also the author of Ninth House, her acclaimed adult debut. Her work has reached beyond the page through screen adaptations of Shadow and Bone by Netflix and Ninth House by Amazon Studios. Bardugo serves as an executive producer on both projects, and her fiction is known for building expansive fantasy worlds across young adult and adult genres.