Jane Hamilton was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, the youngest of five children. In 1979 she received a degree in English from Carleton College. In 1983, her first published short stories were published in Harper's Magazine in 1983. In 1988, her first novel, The Book of Ruth, was published. It won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, and the Wisconsin Library Association Banta Book Award in 1989, and was an Oprah's Book Club selection in 1996. In her second novel, A Map of the World, was published, followed by The Short History of a Prince in 1998. The Short History of a Prince was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998 and was shortlisted for the 1999 Orange Prize. She currently lives in Rochester, Wisconsin.