Joanna Trollope

Born in her grandfather's rectory in the Cotswolds in December 1943, Joanna Trollope has always felt that her birthplace in the Cotswolds was her real "home". Joanna says — “It gave me - still gives me - not just a sense of rootedness, but a capacity to value landscape and weather and the rich life of smallish communities. It wouldn't matter where I lived now, I'd always carry that centred feeling of having come from somewhere very well defined with me.” Joanna’s family is hugely important to her. She is the eldest of three, the mother of two daughters and the stepmother of two stepsons, and, now, immensely enjoying being a grandmother. Her school days, in Surrey, were really not a happy time and, in fact, Joanna says that she actually rather dreaded school. She says, “I only started to enjoy education when I got to university. No school can be blamed, however, it was more my childhood and adolescent sense of being an outsider, of not belonging (a very formative sense, I now know, for being a writer) that made me miserable at a time when 99.9% of children long to conform. But, I was very well taught, however, and I think I sensed this, even then.” After winning a scholarship to Oxford, Joanna joined the Foreign Office and then became a teacher. She began writing 'to fill the long spaces after the children had gone to bed' and for many years combined her writing career with working as a teacher. It was in 1980 that Joanna became a full time author but says: “My first novel was written when I was 14, all about myself, of course (it is now kept under lock and key in case my children find it...) I suppose I wrote it for the same reason that I still write - to communicate. I don't think we should ever underestimate the power of story - story is how we negotiate with each other, how we build up relationships, how we learn. And nothing is so fascinating as good narrative - nobody of any age can resist What Happens Next ...” Joanna Trollope has been writing for over thirty years: she first wrote a number of historical novels now published under Caroline Harvey, then Britannia’s Daughters - a study of women in the British Empire and more recently, her enormously successful contemporary works of fiction, several of which have been televised. The Choir was her first contemporary novel, followed by A Village Affair and A Passionate Man. The Rector's Wife was her first number one bestseller, and made her into a household name. Since then she has written eleven more contemporary novels: The Men and the Girls, A Spanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People’s Children, Marrying the Mistress, Girl from the South and Brother and Sister, Second Honeymoon, Friday Nights, The Other Family and the newly published Daughters in Law.