Sarah Dunant

British novelist, journalist, broadcaster, and critic

Dunant started writing in her late twenties, first with a friend, with whom she produced two political thrillers and a five part BBC1 drama series – Thin Air, starring Kate Hardie, Nicky Henson and Clive Merrison, broadcast in 1988 – before going solo. Her eleven subsequent novels have explored two genres: contemporary thrillers and historical fiction. What unites the two is her decision to use avowedly popular forms, characterised by compelling storytelling, as a way to explore serious subject matter and reach large audiences. This has included (though not exclusively) a passionate commitment to feminism and the role of women inside history. In the 1990s, she wrote a trilogy around a British female private eye Hannah Wolfe, spotlighting issues like surrogacy, cosmetic surgery, animal rights, and violence to women. Sexual violence was also at the centre of Transgressions (based on a mysterious series of incidents happening in her house which tackled what might happen if a woman woke to an intruder in her house and live to tell the tale. The resulting furore over the actions of the heroine "caused the book to become a cause celebre which triggered a debate about rape and popular culture". In 2000, an extended visit to Florence changed her working life. In what she acknowledged was something of a midlife crisis, her old passion for history was reignited, and she started to research the impact of the Renaissance on the city in the 1490s. The result was The Birth of Venus, the first of a trilogy of novels about women's lives in the Italian Renaissance. The commercial success of these books in America and elsewhere allowed Dunant to devote herself full time to writing and research, concentrating on the most current work being done in Renaissance studies, most particularly concerning the lives of women. The novel Sacred Hearts, a story of nuns in an enclosed convent in 16th century Ferrara, led to collaboration with the early music group, Musica Secreta: a theatrical adaptation using the music of the period and with a choir, performed in churches and at early music festivals around Britain. Since then, she has been working on the history of the Borgia family, seeking to separate the colorful historical truth from the smear and gossip that built up during their lives, and in history after their deaths. As a journalist she has reviewed for many UK newspapers, edited two books of essays on political correctness and millennial anxieties, and currently reviews for The New York Times.

Her crime novels were three times shortlisted for the CWA Golden dagger award, and in 1994 she won a silver dagger for Fatlands. She is an accredited lecturer for NADFAS the UK arts charity, which promotes education and appreciation of fine arts. In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from Oxford Brookes University, where she is a guest lecturer on the Creative writing M. A. course.

In her journalism and public speaking, she is a feminist, and an advocate for legalisation of marijuana. A Catholic by birth, she has also written about the importance of religion in history and the need for Catholicism to reform itself. Intensive Care, 1986. London, Andre Deutsch.

Birth Marks, 1992. New York, Doubleday. Fatlands, 1993. New York, Penzler Books. Under My Skin, 1995. New York, Scribner Book Co.

Snow Storms in a Hot Climate, 1988. New York, Random House. Transgressions, 1997. New York, HarperCollins. Mapping the Edge, 1999. New York, Random House.

Blood and Beauty, 2013. London, Virago Press. In the Name of the Family, 2017. London, Virago Press.

The Birth of Venus, 2003. New York, Random House. In the Company of the Courtesan, 2006. London, Virago Press. Sacred Hearts, 2009. New York, Random House.