Paula Hawkins is a British author. Originally from Zimbabwe, where her father was an economics professor and journalist, she moved to London at age seventeen. There, she studied economics, philosophy, and politics at the University of Oxford. After working as a business and economics journalist for fifteen years, Hawkins began to publish romantic fiction in 2009 under the pen name "Amy Silver." Her first four novels did not gain widespread notoriety, but her fifth, The Girl on the Train, which takes on the darker subject matter of domestic violence and alcohol abuse, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers List of 2015.