Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is an American author of fiction.

She was born in Portland, Maine, and was raised in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire. Her father was a science professor, and her mother taught high school. After graduating from Bates College, she spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year. In 1982 she graduated with honors, and received both a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and a Certificate of Gerontology from the Syracuse School of Social Work. That year her first story was published in New Letters magazine.

Strout moved to New York City, and continued to write stories that were published in literary magazines, as well as in Redbook and Seventeen. It took her six or seven years to write Amy and Isabelle, which when published was shortlisted for the 2000 Orange Prize and nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.Amy and Isabelle was made into a television movie starring Elisabeth Shue and was produced by Oprah Winfrey's studio, Harpo Films. She was a NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) professor at Colgate University during the Fall Semester of 2007, where she taught creative writing at both the introductory and advanced level. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Paolo Giordano (born 1982) is an Italian writer who won the Premio Strega literary award with his first novel The Solitude of Prime Numbers.

Paolo Giordano was born in Turin. He is a professional physicist and is currently working on a doctorate in particle physics. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, his first novel, has sold over a million copies. It is was translated into thirty languages.

The Italian language film based on the novel was released in September 2010.