guests

Sarah Hall was born in 1974 in Cumbria. She received her BA from Aberystwyth University, Wales, and a MLitt in Creative Writing from St Andrews, Scotland. She is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, the Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and the Lakeland Book of the Year Prize. In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, (Daughters of the North in the USA) was published in 2007, and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, the Lakeland Book of the Year prize. It was also shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, and longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award. The Carhullan Army was listed as one of The Times 100 Best Books of the Decade. Her fourth novel, How To Paint A Dead Man, was published in 2009 and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2010. The Wolf Border, her fifth novel, was published in 2015, to critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for The Southbank Sky Arts Awards and the James Tate Memorial Black Prize, and won the 2015 Cumbria Life Culture Awards 'Writer of the Year'. Her first collection of short stories, titled The Beautiful Indifference, was published by Faber & Faber in November 2011. Her second collection, Madame Zero, was published in 2017 (Polish translation to be published in July by Pauza publishing house). Her works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She is a member of the Royal Society of Literature. She has judged a number of prestigious literary awards and prizes (e.g. 2017 Man Booker Prize). She has taught creative writing in different settings in the UK and abroad.

pic. Richard Thwaites