Lucy Angela Hughes-Hallett (born 7 December 1951) [1] is a British cultural historian, biographer [2] and novelist. In November 2013, she won the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction for her biography of the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, The Pike. [3] The book also won the 2013 Costa Book Award (Biography) [4] [5] and the Duff Cooper Prize. [6]
Lucy Hughes-Hallett has written four works of nonfiction: Cleopatra, Heroes, The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio, and The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham . [7] She has also written a novel, Peculiar Ground, set partly in the 1660s and partly during the Cold War. In her collection of short stories, Fabulous, she reimagines stories from classical mythology, the Bible, and folklore, setting them in modern Britain.
Hughes-Hallett was a Vogue Talent Contest prizewinner in 1973 and subsequently worked for five years as a feature writer on the magazine. In 1978 she won the Catherine Pakenham Award for Young Female Journalists for a profile of Roald Dahl. Since then she has written on books and arts for all of the British broadsheet newspapers including The Sunday Times and The Guardian . She was television critic of the London Evening Standard for five years.
She has judged the WH Smith Award, The Duff Cooper Prize, The Encore Award, the RSL Jerwood Award, the Rathbones Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize.
In 2021 she was the Chair of the Judges of the International Booker Prize.
She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association. [8]
In 1984, she married publisher Dan Franklin. They have two daughters.
General Gabriele D'Annunzio, Prince of Montenevoso, sometimes written d'Annunzio as he used to sign himself, was an Italian poet, playwright, orator, journalist, aristocrat, and Royal Italian Army officer during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and in its political life from 1914 to 1924. He was often referred to by the epithets il Vate and il Profeta.
Duce is an Italian title, derived from the Latin word dux, 'leader', and a cognate of duke. National Fascist Party leader Benito Mussolini was identified by Fascists as Il Duce of the movement since the birth of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919. In 1925 it became a reference to the dictatorial position of Sua Eccellenza Benito Mussolini, Capo del Governo, Duce del Fascismo e Fondatore dell'Impero. Mussolini held this title together with that of President of the Council of Ministers: this was the constitutional position which entitled him to rule Italy on behalf of the King of Italy. Founder of the Empire was added for the exclusive use by Mussolini in recognition of his founding of an official legal entity of the Italian Empire on behalf of the King in 1936 following Italy's victory in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The position was held by Mussolini until 1943, when he was removed from office by the King and the position of Duce was discontinued, while Marshal The 1st Duke of Addis Abeba was appointed Presidente del Consiglio.
A caul is a piece of membrane that can cover a newborn's head and face. Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in less than 1 in 80,000 births. The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the attending parent, physician, or midwife upon birth of the child.
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House.
Amanda Lucy Foreman is a British-American biographer and historian. Her books include Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, A World on Fire, and The World Made by Women. She also wrote and starred in a four-part documentary regarding the role of women in society, entitled The Ascent of Woman. Currently, she is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal bi-weekly 'Historically Speaking' and an Honorary Research Senior Fellow in the History Department at the University of Liverpool.
Giovanni Giuriati was an Italian fascist politician.
The Italian Regency of Carnaro was a self-proclaimed state in the city of Fiume led by Gabriele d'Annunzio between 1919 and 1920.
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.
Julia Copus FRSL is a British poet, biographer and children's writer.
Maggie O'Farrell, RSL, is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, After You'd Gone, won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. She appeared in the Waterstones 25 Authors for the Future. Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her novel Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and the fiction prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The Marriage Portrait was shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Scot D. Ryersson was an illustrator, graphic artist and writer. In addition to many critiques and essays on film and literature, he was the co-author of the biography Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati, as well as The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse.
Anna Burns FRSL is an author from Northern Ireland. Her novel Milkman won the 2018 Booker Prize, the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is an English author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.
Kathryn Hughes is a British academic, journalist and biographer. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature.
David Steen was a British photographer. His subjects included show business and sports stars, and politicians.
The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War is a 2013 book by the writer Lucy Hughes-Hallett first published in London by Fourth Estate. The American edition, published by Knopf in 2013, is titled Gabriele d'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War. The book is a biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio, although it is written in a style more commonly seen in fiction, which echoes that of d'Annunzio's autobiography. Finding mere chronology insufficient for telling the story of her "extraordinary, unstoppable and in many ways quite ridiculous" subject, Hughes-Hallett "tries out a variety of cross-sections and settings, mosaics and micro-narratives," as Robert Gordon wrote in Literary Review.
Aida Edemariam is an Ethiopian-Canadian journalist based in the UK, who has worked in New York, Toronto and London. She was formerly deputy review and books editor of the Canadian National Post, and is now a senior feature writer and editor at The Guardian in the UK. She lives in Oxford. Her memoir about her Ethiopian grandmother, The Wife's Tale: A Personal History, won the Ondaatje Prize in 2019.
Phebe Mann Eur Ing CEng MICE FCIArb FRICS FRSA MCIOB FHEA is Chair of the Institution of Civil Engineers London. She is an associate professor in highway and transportation at the University of East London. As a Chartered Civil Engineer, Chartered Surveyor, European Engineer, Chartered Construction Manager and Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Mann, is the first woman engineer of minority ethnic origin appointed by the Lord Chancellor to the Upper Tribunal, General Regulatory Chamber and Agricultural Land Tribunal for Wales. Phebe is also the first and only woman to hold eight professional qualifications concurrently in the UK. She has been recognised with a Top 50 Women in Engineering Award (WE50) for her outstanding achievements in engineering.
La Disperata was the name given to the group of bodyguards who protected Gabriele D'Annunzio. It was taken up in turn by a number of later squadre and fascist military units in Italy between 1921 and 1945.
Giovanni Randaccio was an Italian soldier.