The author of 12 novels, including Orange prize winner A Spell of Winter, as well as 10 poetry collections, Dunmore revealed her diagnosis in March, as well as her pragmatic attitude towards death. She wrote novels set in the past but never broke her own rule of inventing dialogue or thoughts for real characters in history. Her novel A Spell of Winter, a gothic tale set before the outbreak of the first world war, won the inaugural Orange prize for fiction in 1996. Her most recent novel Birdcage Walk, was published in March and described by the Observer as “the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written”. Dunmore’s poetry was also widely lauded, landing her a TS Eliot prize nomination, the Cardiff international poetry prize, the Alice Hunt Bartlett award and a win at the National Poetry Competition in 2010.

Source: The Guardian June 05, 2017 18:12 UTC