Susan Cooper (born 1935) is a celebrated British author best known for her influential contributions to children’s and young adult fantasy literature. Her most iconic work is The Dark Is Rising sequence—a five-book series blending Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology, and a timeless battle between Light and Dark. The fourth book, The Grey King, won the Newbery Medal in 1976, and the series as a whole earned her the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in 2012.

Her work is known for its lyrical prose, deep sense of place, and reverence for myth and history. In 2024, she was named the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, cementing her legacy as one of the genre’s greats.