Photo: Arild Vågen / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
What fascinates me about Paula Hawkins is the timing. She spent years as a financial journalist before The Girl on the Train detonated when she was in her early forties, proving that a writer's best chapter can arrive late. I admire how she weaponizes the mundane, the bored glance from a commuter train, into something genuinely unsettling. Her Oxford education and reporter's eye give her thrillers a forensic precision that lesser imitators chase but rarely catch. Into the Water confirmed she was no one-hit wonder. She writes ordinary people circling private darkness, and she does it with quiet, almost clinical confidence.
Overview
Paula Hawkins (born 26 August 1972) is a British author best known for her top-selling psychological thriller novel The Girl on the Train (2015), which deals with themes of domestic violence, alcohol, and drug abuse. The novel was adapted into a film starring Emily Blunt in 2016. Hawkins' second thriller novel, Into the Water, was released in 2017.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Paula Hawkins
- Name (Japanese)
- ポーラ・ホーキンズ
- Reading
- ぽーら・ほーきんず
- Born
- August 26, 1972 (age 53)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Virgo / Rat
- Origin
- Harare, Harare Province, Zimbabwe
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- journalist / novelist / writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Collingham College
Awards & achievements
- 2016 BBC 100 Women
- 2016 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | The Girl on the Train | — | |
| Notable work | Into the Water | — |
6. Links
Journalist — see all → · Novelist — see all →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.