Biography
Novelist Rose Tremain was born in 1943 in London. She was educated at the Sorbonne and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia, where she taught creative writing from 1988-95. Her publications include novels and short-story collections, and she is also the author of a number of radio and television plays, including Temporary Shelter, which won a Giles Cooper Award, and One Night In Winter, first broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in December 2001. She was awarded an honorary LittD by the University of East Anglia in 2000.
Her first novel, Sadler's Birthday, was published in 1976. This was followed by Letter to Sister Benedicta (1978), The Cupboard (1981) and The Swimming Pool Season (1985), which won the Angel Literary Award. Restoration (1989), set during the reign of Charles II, tells the story of Robert Merivel, an anatomy student and Court favourite, who falls in love with the King's mistress. The novel won the Angel Literary Award, the Sunday Express Book of the Year award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. It was made into a film in 1996.
Her other novels include Sacred Country (1992), winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) and the prestigious Prix Fémina Etranger (France), about a young girl's crisis of gender and identity; The Way I Found Her (1997), a psychological thriller set in Paris; and Music and Silence (1999), winner of the Whitbread Novel Award, a historical novel set in the early seventeenth century, the story of an English lute player, Peter Claire, employed at the Danish Court to play for King Christian IV.
Rose Tremain has published several collections of short stories, including The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories (1984), The Garden of the Villa Mollini and Other Stories (1987) and Evangelista's Fan and Other Stories (1994).
She was chosen as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion by the literary magazine Granta in 1983, and was a judge for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1988 and in 2000. She reviews and broadcasts regularly for press and radio, and lives in Norfolk and London. Her latest novel, The Colour (2003), set in New Zealand at the time of the West Coast Gold Rush in the 1860s, was shortlisted for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Rose Tremain's latest books are a collection of short stories: The Darkness of Wallis Simpson (2005); and a new novel, The Road Home (2007), shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Novel Award and winner of the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction. She was awarded a CBE in 2007
Bibliography
Sadler's Birthday Macdonald & Jane's, 1976
Letter to Sister Benedicta Macdonald & Jane's, 1978
The Cupboard Macdonald, 1981
The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories Hamish Hamilton, 1984
Journey to the Volcano Hamish Hamilton, 1985
The Swimming Pool Season Hamish Hamilton, 1985
The Garden of the Villa Mollini and Other Stories Hamish Hamilton, 1987
Restoration Hamish Hamilton, 1989
Sacred Country Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992
Evangelista's Fan and Other Stories Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994
Collected Short Stories Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996
The Way I Found Her Sinclair-Stevenson, 1997
Music and Silence Chatto & Windus, 1999
The Colour Chatto & Windus, 2003
The Darkness of Wallis Simpson Bloomsbury, 2005
The Road Home Chatto & Windus, 2007
Prizes and awards
1984 Dylan Thomas Award (for four short stories, three from 'The Colonel's Daughter')
1984 Giles Cooper Award (radio play) Temporary Shelter
1985 Angel Literary Award The Swimming Pool Season
1989 Angel Literary Award Restoration
1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year Restoration
1990 Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) Restoration
1992 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) Sacred Country
1993 Prix Fémina Etranger (France) Sacred Country
1999 Whitbread Novel Award Music and Silence
2004 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Colour
2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (shortlist) The Darkness of Wallis Simpson
2007 CBE
2007 Costa Novel Award (shortlist) The Road Home
2008 Good Housekeeping Book Award (best fiction) The Road Home
2008 Orange Prize for Fiction The Road Home