Alex Michaelides author page

Alex Michaelides biography

Alex Michaelides is a British-Cypriot author and screenwriter whose novels include The Silent Patient, The Maidens and The Fury. He grew up in Cyprus and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, before completing an MA in Screenwriting at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Before becoming a novelist, he worked as an actor and screenwriter, and spent time working in a secure psychiatric community for teenagers in North London while studying psychotherapy.

His debut novel, The Silent Patient, was published in the UK by Orion in February 2019. The psychological thriller follows Alicia Berenson, a painter who stops speaking after shooting her husband, and Theo Faber, a psychotherapist determined to discover what happened. The novel debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, became a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Mystery & Thriller category of the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards. It has sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide, and its film rights were acquired by Plan B.

Michaelides followed this with The Maidens (2021), published in the UK by Orion. Set at a fictional Cambridge college, the novel follows group therapist Mariana Andros as she investigates murders connected to a secretive society of female students and a charismatic professor of Greek tragedy. The book became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and its television adaptation rights were acquired by Miramax Television and Stone Village.

His third novel, The Fury, was published in 2024 by Penguin. The murder mystery takes place on a private Greek island, where former film star Lana Farrar invites a small group of friends for a weekend gathering that ends in violence. The story is narrated by one of the guests and draws on the structure of traditional detective fiction.

Michaelides has identified Agatha Christie and Greek mythology as important influences on his fiction. His experience studying and working in psychotherapy informed the setting and central character of The Silent Patient, while his time at Cambridge contributed to the fictional university setting of The Maidens. The Fury became a New York Times bestseller in January 2024 and a Sunday Times bestseller in February 2024, and was selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month.