Diane Johnson is an American-born novelist and essayist whose satirical novels often feature American heroines living abroad in contemporary France. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Persian Nights in 1988. Born in Moline, Illinois, Johnson's recent books include Lulu in Marrakech, L'Affaire, Le Mariage, and Le Divorce, for which she was a National Book Award finalist and the winner of the California Book Award gold medal for fiction. Her memoir Flyover Lives was released in January 2014. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books since the mid-1970s. With filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, Johnson co-authored the screenplay to The Shining, based on the horror novel of the same name by Stephen King. In 2003, Le Divorce, a film adaptation of her comedy of manners novel of the same name, was released. It was directed by James Ivory and starred Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. Johnson currently divides her time between homes in Paris and San Francisco. 

April 28th, 1934 in Moline (Age 90)