Jane Gardam – författare

I den andra delen av Jane Gardams trilogi om imperiets barn är det Betty Feathers som står i centrum. Uppvuxen i Kina, tidigt föräldralös och utan någon verklig riktning i livet möter hon den engelske advokaten Edward Feathers, gifter sig och förblir honom trogen i ett barnlöst äktenskap. Men lika trogen förblir hon den man som hon upplevde en enda natt med och som är hennes makes dödsfiende.

Jane Gardam har med trilogin om detta triangeldrama i skuggan av det sönderfallande engelska imperiet upplevt en stor internationell succé nu när hon snart ska fylla 90 år! Hennes sätt att med värme och engelsk kvickhet skildra stora men hårt kontrollerade känslor påminner oss om varför den engelska litteraturen är så älskad.

I den tredje och avslutande delen av trilogin om imperiets barn skildrar Jane Gardam advokaten Terry Veneerings liv och hans mycket laddade förhållande till kollegan och konkurrenten Sir Edward Feathers, vars hustru Betty alltid varit föremålet för de bådas åtrå. Och precis som de båda andra har Veneering haft en mycket komplicerad barndom vars sår ingen så framgångsrik karriär som affärsjurist kan läka.

Jane Gardams trilogi om detta triangeldrama i skuggan av det sönderfallande engelska imperiet har vunnit läsare över hela Europa. Hon började skriva relativt sent och får nu, på sin ålders höst, njuta frukterna av ett långt författarskap i den klassiska engelska traditionen: förnuft och känsla.

Jane Austen''s love life - long the subject of speculation - is finally, delightfully dealt with in the title story of this collection. Many of the other stories, like ''The Sidmouth Letters,'' bring together past and present - with sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, often intensely moving results.With quiet elegance and devastating accuracy, Jane Gardam probes many and varied lives. We meet a trio of Kensington widows, mean-spirited and middle-aged, paying improbable tribute to a long exploited nanny; we await- with dread- a stranger to tea in an Engliish home; we witness the mercurial changes that take place in young love, and we watch as a bohemian, passionate past returns to tempt domestic bliss.

Her territory isn''t young or old; it''s the heart-and brain-matter of people, their desires and worries and fantasies and intricate interactions. All of this is set capably against a particular landscape, and the result tends to be vivid and real. Beautiful, like Willa Cather'' Meg Wolitzer, New York TimesThe barren, beautiful Cumbrian fells provide the bewitching setting for the adventures of Bill and Harry, two children who find wonder at every turn as they experience the Hollow Land. Everyday challenges give a daring edge to this rural work and play. There are mysteries to explore and uncover , like the case of the Egg Witch, and everyone is curious about the Household Name, a visitor from London, moving into the jewel of the territory, Light Farm.Gardam is at her best with this novel, which won the Whitbread award in 1981.

''A meticulously observed modern classic'' Independent

''Gardam writes about love, death, loneliness, money and madness with gentle ferocity. The Old Filth trilogy should be read by anyone who has ever been interested in how we become who we are'' Amanda Craig, Independent on Sunday''Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers'' Hilary Mantel''This humorous, melancholic final volume establishes the trilogy as a modern classic'' Kate Saunders, The TimesOld Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth''s great rival in work and -though it was never spoken of - in love. Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age.

''Touching, terribly sad, funny: a smashing novel'' The TimesIn 1904, six-year-old Polly Flint is sent by her sea captain father to live with her two holy aunts in a house by the sea on England''s northeast coast. The house is so close to the sea it seems to toss like a ship, and so isolated, she might be marooned on an island.There Polly lives for 81 years, while the century rages around her and Victorian order becomes nuclear dread. Through it all, she returns again and again to the story of Robinson Crusoe, who, marooned like her, fends off the madness of isolation with imagination.