Lisa St Aubin de Terán (born 2 October 1953) is an English novelist, writer of autobiographical fictions, and memoirist. Her father was the Guyanese writer and academic

Jan Carew Jan Rynveld Carew (24 September 1920 – 6 December 2012) was a Guyana-born novelist, playwright, poet and educator, who lived at various times in The Netherlands, Mexico, the UK, France, Spain, Ghana, Jamaica, Canada and the United States. ...

Life and career

Lisa St Aubin de Terán was born in 1953 to Joan Mary Murray (née St Aubin) and Jan Rynveld Carew and was brought up in

Clapham Clapham () is a district in south London, south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (including Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Ea ...

in south London. She attended

James Allen's Girls' School James Allen's Girls' School, abbreviated JAGS, is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private day school situated in Dulwich, South London, England. Founded in 1741, it is the second oldest girls’ independent school in Great Britain, with ...

. Her memoir ''Hacienda'' (1998) describes how she fell into a whirlwind first marriage at the age of 16 to an exiled Venezuelan aristocrat and bank robber, Jaime Terán, and lived for seven years at a remote farm in the Andean region of

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

. She fled both the marriage and Venezuela when he suggested that she and their infant daughter should join him in a

suicide pact A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to die by suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. In England and Wales, a suicide pact is a partial defense, under section 4 of the Homicide Act ...

. After returning to Britain, she married her second husband, the Scottish poet and novelist George MacBeth in 1982. It was also in that year she published her first novel, '' Keepers of the House'', winning her the

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to ...

and a place on ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

''s list of "Best of Young British Novelists" (1983, issue #7). ''The Slow Train to Milan'', winner of the

John Llewellyn Rhys Prize The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama) by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kin ...

, followed in 1983. In the same year, she moved to Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalen in Norfolk. After her second marriage broke down, she left to live in Italy. Her third husband was the painter Robbie Duff Scott, whom she had first met when George MacBeth asked him to paint a portrait of her. After marrying in 1989, she and Duff Scott moved to

Umbria Umbria ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Cascata delle Marmore, Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the Tiber. It is the only landlocked region on the Italian Peninsula, Apennine Peninsula. The re ...

, her life there being described in ''Venice: The Four Seasons'' (1992) and ''A Valley in Italy'' (1994). In 1994, she presented " Santos to Santa Cruz", an episode of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television series ''

Great Railway Journeys ''Great Railway Journeys'', originally titled ''Great Railway Journeys of the World'', is a recurring series of travel documentaries produced by BBC Television. The premise of each programme is that the presenter, typically a well-known figu ...

'', about travelling from Brazil to Bolivia, and wrote an accompanying article for ''The Times''. Later in 1998, she visited

Lake Garda Lake Garda (, , or , ; ; ) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, between Brescia and Milan to the west, and Verona and Venice to the east. The lake cuts into the edge of the Eastern Alps, Italian Alp ...

and

Lake Maggiore Lake Maggiore (, ; ; ; ; literally 'greater lake') or Verbano (; ) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest lake in Italy and the largest in southern Switzerland. The lake and its shoreline are divided be ...

for an episode of the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

documentary ''The Off Season''. In 2001, Duff Scott and de Terán separated and by 2003 de Terán had moved to Amsterdam and set up her own film production company called Radiant Pictures, through which she met her new partner, Dutch cameraman, Mees van Deth. A year later, the couple moved to in Mossuril,

Nampula Province Nampula is a Provinces of Mozambique, province of northern Mozambique. It has an area of and a population of 5,758,920, making it the most populous province in Mozambique (2017 census). Nampula is the capital of the province. History Under Port ...

, Mozambique. Lisa St Aubin de Terán has three children, including by her first husband a daughter, Iseult Teran, who is also a novelist. Lisa lived in Mozambique until 2021, when she returned to London with a bag full of manuscripts, including her autobiography (''Better Broken Than New'') and two new novels, ''The Hobby'' and ''Kafka Lodge''.

The Terán Foundation

In 2004, Lisa St Aubin de Terán established The Terán Foundation to help poor villages in northern Mozambique. She writes about this phase of her life in ''Mozambique Mysteries'' (2007). The Terán Foundation's first project, the College of Tourism and Agriculture (CTCA) in Cabaceira Grande, operated between 2004 and 2010, before it was sold back to the government. A second restaurant and guest house, Sunset Boulevard, functions on a non-profit basis as a training facility in Mossuril. The third building project, The Leopard Spot, was earmarked for construction in

Milange Milange is a town in Zambezia Province of Mozambique. It is the district center of Milange District. Timberlake, Jonathan; Julian Bayliss, Tereza Alves, Susana Baena, Jorge Francisco, Tim Harris, Camila da Sousa (2007). "The Biodiversity and Conserv ...

, on the border with

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

Awards

Bibliography

In addition to her books, Lisa St Aubin de Terán has written, primarily as a travel journalist, for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

The Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. Founded in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first published i ...

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

, Vanity Fair,

Marie Claire ''Marie Claire'' (stylized in all lowercase; ) is a French international monthly magazine first published in France in 1937. Since then various editions are published in many countries and languages. The feature editions focus on women aro ...

'' and ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

'' among other publications.

Books

Selected essays

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:de Teran, Lisa St Aubin 1953 births 20th-century English essayists 20th-century English short story writers 20th-century English memoirists 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English essayists 21st-century English memoirists 21st-century English novelists 21st-century English women writers British expatriates in Mozambique British expatriates in Venezuela English travel writers English women memoirists English women travel writers English expatriates in Italy English expatriates in the Netherlands English people of Guyanese descent English women novelists John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners Living people People educated at James Allen's Girls' School People from Clapham People from King's Lynn and West Norfolk (district) Writers from London