American novelist known for her lyrical works that centre on families and have a pastoral setting.

Smiley studied literature at Vassar College (B.A., 1971) and the University of Iowa (M.A., 1975; M.F.A., 1976; Ph.D., 1978). From 1981 to 1996 she was a professor of English at Iowa State University. She subsequently turned to writing full time.

Her first novel, Barn Blind (1980), focuses on the relationships between a mother and her children. Duplicate Keys, a mystery novel, appeared in 1984. The Greenlanders (1988) is a sweeping epic centred on a 14th-century family, the Gunnarssons. A Thousand Acres (1991; film 1997), which won a Pulitzer Prize, is Smiley's best-known novel. Modeled on William Shakespeare (Shakespeare, William)'s King Lear, it focuses on the Cook family and farm life in Iowa in the 1980s. Smiley's subsequent novels include Moo (1995), a satire of academia; Horse Heaven (2000), about horse racing; and Ten Days in the Hills (2007), a reworking of Giovanni Boccaccio (Boccaccio, Giovanni)'s Decameron that is set in Hollywood.

Among Smiley's nonfiction works are a biography of Charles Dickens (Dickens, Charles) (2002) and A Year at the Races (2004), a memoir of her experiences as a racehorse owner. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005) is a highly personal study of the form and function of the novel.