Susan Eloise Hinton is an American writer well known for her young adult novel The Outsiders.
while still in her teens, Hinton became a household name as the writer of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s. She began composing it in 1965. The book was inspired by two rival gangs at her colledge, Will Rogers university, the Greasers and the Socs, and her desire to show sympathy toward the Greasers by composing from their point of view. It was released by Viking Press in 1967, during her freshman year at the High school of Tulsa; the book has sold more than 14 million copies in print and still sells more than 500000, a year.
hinton's publisher suggested she use her initials instead of her feminine given names so that the very first male book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its writer was female. After the success of The Outsiders, Hinton chose to continue composing and publishing using her initials, because she did not want to lose what she had made famous, and to allow her to keep her private and public lives separate.
S. E. Hinton
