Rose Tremain

Last updated


Rose Tremain

BornRosemary Jane Thomson
(1943-08-02) 2 August 1943 (age 79)
London, England
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
Alma mater Sorbonne
University of East Anglia (BA)
Notable awards Orange Prize (2008)
Whitbread Award (1999)
Prix Femina Étranger (1994)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1992)
Sunday Express Book of the Year (1989)
Giles Cooper Award (1984)

Dame Rose Tremain DBE FRSL (born 2 August 1943) is an English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. [1]

Contents

Life

Rose Tremain was born Rosemary Jane Thomson on 2 August 1943 in London to Viola Mabel Thomson and Keith Nicholas Home Thomson. [2] Her paternal great-grandfather is William Thomson, who was Archbishop of York from 1862 to 1890. [3]

She was educated at Francis Holland School, Crofton Grange School, the Sorbonne (1961–1962) and the University of East Anglia (BA, English Literature). [4] She later went on to teach creative writing at the University of East Anglia from 1988 to 1995, and was appointed Chancellor in 2013. [5]

She married Jon Tremain in 1971 and they had one daughter, Eleanor, born in 1972, who became an actress. The marriage lasted about five years. Her second marriage, to theatre director Jonathan Dudley, in 1982, lasted about nine years; and she has been with Richard Holmes since 1992. [6] She lives in Thorpe St Andrew near Norwich in Norfolk. [7] [8] [9]

Writing

Her influences include William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies , and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1967 novel 100 Years of Solitude and the magical realism style. [6]

She is a historical novelist who approaches her subjects "from unexpected angles, concentrating her attention on unglamorous outsiders." [4]

In 2009, she donated the short story The Jester of Astapovo to Oxfam's "Ox-Tales" project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the "Earth" collection. [10]

She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1983. [2] Already Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Tremain was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to writing. [11]

Awards and honours

Selected bibliography

Novels

Collections of short stories

For children

Memoir

Related Research Articles

Carol Ann Shields, was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kamila Shamsie</span> Pakistani writer

Kamila Shamsie FRSL is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire (2017). Named on Granta magazine's list of 20 best young British writers, Shamsie has been described by The New Indian Express as "a novelist to reckon with and to look forward to." She also writes for publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect, and broadcasts on radio.

The University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course was founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970. The M.A. is widely regarded as the most prestigious and successful in the country and competition for places is notoriously tough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colm Tóibín</span> Irish novelist and writer

Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nina Bawden</span> English novelist and childrens writer (1925–2012)

Nina Bawden CBE, FRSL, JP was an English novelist and children's writer. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 and the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010. She is one of very few who have both served as a Booker judge and made a Booker shortlist as an author. She was a recipient of the Golden PEN Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Kay</span> Scottish poet, novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1961)

Jacqueline Margaret Kay,, is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works Other Lovers (1993), Trumpet (1998) and Red Dust Road (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998 and the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year Award in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali Smith</span> Scottish author and journalist

Ali Smith CBE FRSL is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".

Linda Grant is an English novelist and journalist.

Tamar Yellin is an author and teacher who lives in Yorkshire. Her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, won the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

<i>Sacred Country</i> 1992 book by Rose Tremain

Sacred Country is a novel by English author Rose Tremain. It was published in 1992 by Sinclair-Stevenson and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Prix Femina étranger. It has been compared to Virginia Woolf's Orlando.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susanna Clarke</span> British author

Susanna Mary Clarke is an English author known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eimear McBride</span> Irish novelist

Eimear McBride is an Irish novelist, whose debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, won the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013 and the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Evans</span> British novelist, journalist and critic

Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written three full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature.

Andrea Stuart is a Barbadian-British historian and writer, who was raised in the Caribbean and the US and now lives in the UK. Her biography of Josephine Bonaparte, entitled The Rose of Martinique, won the Enid McLeod Literary Prize in 2004. Although her three published books so far have been non-fiction, she has spoken of working on a novel set in the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tessa Hadley</span> British author

Tessa Jane Hadley is a British author, who writes novels, short stories and nonfiction. Her writing is realistic and often focuses on family relationships. Her novels have twice reached the longlists of the Orange Prize and the Wales Book of the Year, and in 2016, she won the Hawthornden Prize, as well as one of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes for fiction. The Windham-Campbell judges describe her as "one of English's finest contemporary writers" and state that her writing "brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful." As of 2016, she is professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Francesca Segal is a British author and journalist. She was raised in a Jewish community in north-west London where she still lives today. She is best known for her novel, The Innocents, which won several book awards. She is the daughter of American author, Erich Segal.

<i>Merivel: A Man of His Time</i> 2012 novel by Rose Tremain

Merivel: A Man of His Time is a novel by Rose Tremain, published in 2012. It is set in 17th century England, France and Switzerland and is a sequel to Restoration. It was short listed for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction in 2013.

The Ribalow Prize is a literary prize awarded annually by Hadassah Magazine the best work of fiction in English on a Jewish theme.

<i>The Gustav Sonata</i>

The Gustav Sonata is a novel by English author Rose Tremain published in 2016 by Chatto & Windus.

References

  1. "Writer is new university chancellor". BBC News. 14 April 2013. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Tremain, Dame Rose, (born 2 Aug. 1943), novelist and playwright". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U38001. ISBN   978-0-19-954088-4 . Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  3. "Thomson, William (1819–1890), archbishop of York" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27330.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. 1 2 Rustin, Susanna (9 May 2003). "Costume dramatist". The Guardian.
  5. "Novelist Rose Tremain appointed as new UEA chancellor". BBC News. 14 April 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  6. 1 2 Rustin, Susanna (10 May 2003). "Profile: Rose Tremain". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  7. Author Notes from 2002 Vintage edition of Sacred County.
  8. Tonkin, Boyd (5 March 2010). "Journeys home: Rose Tremain reflects on the past and her present life writing in the south of France". The Independent. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  9. Norfolk novelist Rose Tremain receives damehood from Queen Retrieved 24/6/22.
  10. Oxfam: Ox-Tales Archived 20 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  11. "No. 62866". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 2019. p. N8.
  12. "1989 | The Man Booker Prizes". themanbookerprize.com. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  13. Aspden, Peter (5 June 2008). "Tremain novel on plight of a migrant wins Orange prize". Irish Times .
  14. Williams, Charlotte (15 October 2012). "Random House gets four nods for Wellcome Trust Book Prize". The Bookseller. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  15. "Shortlist for 2013 Walter Scott Prize Announced". Borders Book Festival. Archived from the original on 7 June 2013. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  16. "Tan Twan Eng wins The Walter Scott Prize". Borders Book Festival. 14 June 2013. Archived from the original on 8 September 2013. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  17. "Past Winners – Fiction". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  18. Cain, Sian (22 November 2016). "Costa book award 2016 shortlists dominated by female writers". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  19. "Announcing the 2017 longlist..." Women's Prize for Fiction. 6 March 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  20. "Rose Tremain's 'Gustav Sonata' wins Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 25 January 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2019.