Jane Gardam

Vocation

Notable

English writer of children's and adult fiction. Gardam also reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. Gardam's first book was a children's novel, A Long Way From Verona, published in 1971. It won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association in 1991, recognizing the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. Although she did not publish her first book until she was in her late 30s, she went on to become one of the most prolific novelists of her generation, with 25 books published over the past 30 years and a number of prestigious prizes to her name. She is the only writer to have won the Whitbread for best novel twice (for The Hollow Land, 1981, and The Queen of the Tambourine, 1991); she has been nominated for the Booker (for God on the Rocks, 1978); her short stories and children's fiction have also won prizes; and in 1999 she was given the Heywood Hill award for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature. Jane Gardam is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. Link to Wikipedia biography