
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
The bestselling American classic of youthful rebellion and coming of age on the streets, adapted into an award-winning film by Francis Ford Coppola
The Greasers and the rich-kid Socs are at war on the Tulsa streets. Ponyboy, a fourteen-year-old brawler, chainsmoker and dreamer, is a fiercely loyal greaser. But a single, murderous catastrophe is to wrench him from his old life and overturn everything he thinks he knows. The Outsiders was an audacious debut written when S. E. Hinton was only seventeen, laying bare the hopes and terrors between teenage bravado in a world of drive-ins, drag races and switchblades. Confronting America with a new breed of anti-hero from the wrong side of the class divide, The Outsiders is a young adult novel of enduring power. It was made into a film in 1983 starring Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise.
With an introduction by Jodi Picoult
'Gritty, emotional and very authentic' Jodi Picoult
'The Outsiders is a teenage epic' Francis Ford Coppola
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Born 1950
Susan Eloise Hinton published her first book, *The Outsiders*, at the age of 17. Her publisher suggested she publish under her initials instead of her feminine so that book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female, and she continued to publish using her initials because of the success of her first book and because she did not want to be famous. In 1979, Hinton was the first recipient of the Margaret Edwards Award, presented by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the ALA for work which depicts the experiences and emotions of teenagers and is widely accepted by young people. That same year, The Outsiders was named best novel by the New York Times in 1979. Hinton currently resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband.
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