Ruta Sepetys (Lithuanian: Rūta Šepetys; born November 19, 1967) is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. As an author, she is a New York Times and international bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal. She is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow and the first American writer of young adult literature to speak at the European Parliament and NATO. Her work has been published in over sixty countries and forty languages and is currently in development for film and television.