Louise Dean is an English author. Her novels won the
Betty Trask Award
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total at least , with normally one author receiving a larger prize amount ( ...
and Le Prince Maurice Prize, and were longlisted for the
Guardian First Book Award
The Guardian First Book Award was a literary award presented by ''The Guardian'' newspaper. It annually recognised one book by a new writer. It was established in 1999, replacing the Guardian Fiction Award or Guardian Fiction Prize that the newspa ...
,
the
International Dublin Literary Award
The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...
, and the
Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
.
Short stories of hers have appeared in ''
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 ...
''. She was a finalist in the 2021
Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in United Kingdom, UK and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first ...
. She founded and directs a worldwide creative writing school, The Novelry.
The
Nobel Prizewinner J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...
is among many authors to acclaim her writing.
Education
Dean went from
Cranbrook School to
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, where she graduated with a degree in history from
Downing College
Downing College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, ...
. She served as the Downing College May Ball President in 1991.
Career
Dean began as a graduate management trainee for
Unilever Plc at Brooke Bond Foods in
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...
. She went into advertising in 1994, working for Chiat/Day London, which became St Lukes, then as a planning director for Bates Asia in Hong Kong in 1995/1996 and at Fallon McElligott Berlin in New York in 1996/1997, before quitting to start an advertising agency in Manhattan. By 2001, Dean had written her first novel and left advertising to pursue writing full time, moving to Provence until 2007, when she returned to live in Kent with her children.
Dean's novels – ''Becoming Strangers'' (2004), ''This Human Season'' (2006), ''The Idea of Love'' (2008), ''The Old Romantic'' (2010) – have received worldwide attention. Her first won the Betty Trask Award and Le Prince Maurice and was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
''Becoming Strangers'' was called a "pageturner" by ''
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 ...
'', whose reviewer compared her style to Alan Bennett's. It was one of ''
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'' ...
s top five books of 2004. When published in the US, Dean was compared to
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...
by the
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
, who called the novel of "breathtaking" and "extraordinary" and a promise of a "spectacular career".
''This Human Season'', her second novel, is set in
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...
in Northern Ireland and was likewise praised. ''
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 ...
'' declared it had surpassed her first. J. M. Coetzee wrote, "With clear-eyed compassion, and with all the resources of the novelist's art, Louise Dean leads us through those terrible days when for a while Belfast was a vortex for the worst of the world's cruelty and pain." Reviewing ''This Human Season'' for ''The Guardian'', the novelist
Ali Smith
Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born 24 August 1962) is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
Early life and education
Smith was born in Inverness on 24 A ...
called Dean an eloquent architect of strengths and shapes of passion, and remarkable in her harshly lyrical delineations of the lives of women and girls...
'This Human Season''is a novel which captures a community's resilience and its humour full of broken glass. Louise Dean describes the exact glint of this spirit."
Described as a "Brit Lit Star" in the US ("Brit Lit star lives up the hype." ''Ladies Home Journal''), Dean was seen in ''The Guardian'' as "an audacious arrival in British fiction. She is unafraid to tackle unsexy or unsafe material."
In 2005 ''The Observer'' dubbed Dean a "significant voice in British fiction" and ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' called her one of the world's five most underrated authors.
Dean's Le Prince Maurice prize in 2006 involved an all-star ceremony in
Mauritius
Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
with
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. She is known for playing eccentric and enigmatic characters, often working with auteurs. Her accolades include an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Volpi Cup, in addit ...
hosting. She was described by ''
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 ...
''s
John Walsh as "a giggly blonde dreamboat, who swears like a Folkestone docker and extends her long, slender body like an Anglepoise lamp.... Louise Dean read from a work-in-progress that contained a swaggering reference to anal sex.... The hotel bar erupted. We could have been in Las Vegas. You could say Ms Dean rose to the occasion. In her long, spider-patterned silk frock, she was transformed under the hot lights into an instant star, a flash-popping vision of perfect teeth, hair, bright eyes and décolletage. The literary world has found its
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron ( ; ; born 7 August 1975) is a South African and American actress and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actresses, she is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 201 ...
."
Dean's third novel, ''The Idea of Love'' (Penguin 2007), is a dark story of a pharmaceutical salesman peddling anti-depressants while dealing with a breakdown. It was hailed as an "unforgettable study of the dark side of the mind" by ''
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 ...
'' and an "enormous delight" by
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 Old Romantic'', her fourth novel (Penguin 2010), has widower Ken try to reunite his family in rural England while romancing an undertaker.
Boyd Tonkin
Boyd Tonkin Hon. FRSL is an English writer, journalist and literary critic. He was the literary editor of ''The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to 2013. A long-time proponent of foreign-language literature, he is the author of ''The 100 Best No ...
commented, "Like its predecessors, it channels the rough music of everyday life for non-Bloomsbury folk with a tragicomic subtlety, a pin-sharp ear for dialogue and a flair for every nuance of character and class. Beneath the mordant delights of observation lies a sharp awareness of the grander themes – love, selfhood, family, freedom and above all death – that haunt minds and shape lives in Kentish cottages, and executive-style new-build homes, as much as Kentish castles. Admirers of
Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards priz ...
still grieving her loss should find solace here."
In 2017, Louise Dean founded The Novelry, a creative writing school for novelists.
By 2021, the team of tutors included bestselling authors and The Novelry was working with leading global literary agencies to get new writing talent published via Dean's fast-track novel-writing courses.
In 2021, Louise Dean was a finalist for the
Costa Book Award for Short Story
The Costa Book Award for Short Story, established in 2012, was an annual literary award for short stories, part of the Costa Book Awards.
The awards were dissolved in 2022.
Recipients
Costa Books of the Year are distinguished with a bold font a ...
.
Books
*''Becoming Strangers'', 2004
*''This Human Season'', 2006
*''The Idea of Love'', 2008
*''The Old Romantic'', 2010
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dean, Louise
English women novelists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)