Anne Tyler is an American novelist, short story writer and literary critic. She has published 20 novels. Her two novels, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1983) and The Accidental Tourist (1985), were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons (1988). She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A Spool of Blue Thread, Tyler’s 20th novel, was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.