Katherine Kurtz
Place of Birth:
Coral Gables, Florida, United States
Katherine Irene Kurtz is an American fantasy writer and author of sixteen historical fantasy novels in the Deryni series. She also wrote several occult alternate history novels in her Templar series, and urban fantasy novels in her Adept series.
Her 1970 debut novel, Deryni Rising, was one of the first fantasy novels written in a mode closer to historical fiction than to mythology or legend, as was common in the then-popular high fantasy works such as those by J. R. R. Tolkien. Writing in Strange Horizons, Kari Sperring calls Kurtz the "first writer of secondary-world historical fantasy", noting her close attention to the importance of faith in pre-modern Western societies and her portrayal of magic as a formal, ritual practice as opposed to the "picaresque and informal" way magic was depicted in other fantasy of the time.
Kurtz's works were popular in the 1970s until the early 1990s, but are no longer widely read.
Her 1970 debut novel, Deryni Rising, was one of the first fantasy novels written in a mode closer to historical fiction than to mythology or legend, as was common in the then-popular high fantasy works such as those by J. R. R. Tolkien. Writing in Strange Horizons, Kari Sperring calls Kurtz the "first writer of secondary-world historical fantasy", noting her close attention to the importance of faith in pre-modern Western societies and her portrayal of magic as a formal, ritual practice as opposed to the "picaresque and informal" way magic was depicted in other fantasy of the time.
Kurtz's works were popular in the 1970s until the early 1990s, but are no longer widely read.