Linda Grant – författare

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women''s Prize for FictionThe Second World War is over, a new decade is beginning but for an East End teenage brother and sister living on the edge of the law, life has been suspended. Sent away to a tuberculosis sanatorium in Kent to learn the way of the patient, they find themselves in the company of army and air force officers, a car salesman, a young university graduate, a mysterious German woman, a member of the aristocracy and an American merchant seaman. They discover that a cure is tantalisingly just out of reach and only by inciting wholesale rebellion can freedom be snatched.

This is a capacious and wide-ranging book, not just about individuals but about the history they move through. Whether the scene is Liverpool in the Blitz, a potato-chip factory in the prairies or a seedy hotel room in Hanoi, the writing is immediate . . . Grant approaches each character with insight and a tart sympathy'' Hilary Mantel, Literary ReviewSybil Ross has been brought up by her Jewish furrier father and style-obsessed mother as an empty-headed fashion plate. But on the worst night of Liverpool''s blitz she uncovers a secret that leaves her disorientated. When the war is over, Sybil embarks on a voyage that leads her to the very edge of America, and to a final choice. THE CAST IRON SHORE is a beautuful evocation of one woman''s journey from the 1930s to the 1990s, combining the personal and political in an outstanding first novel.

WINNER OF THE WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE 2020When a dead body is found in the Thames, caught in the chains of HMS Belfast, it begins a search for a missing woman. A policeman, a documentary film-maker and an Irish nurse named Chrissie all respond to the death of the unknown woman in their own ways. London is a place of random meetings, shifting relationships - and some, like Chrissie, intersect with many. The wonderful Linda Grant weaves a tale around ideas of home; how London can be a place of exile or expulsion, how home can be a physical place or an idea, how all our lives intersect. ''Reminds us of the depth and strength of the communities that are our beloved London. Thank you'' Philippe Sands''There''s a Dickensian quality to the opening scene and yet it''s one of the most bitingly contemporary publications of the year - a shifting, polyphonic narrative'' Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday''There is a richness in this novel, found in a migrant experience that is deeply embedded rather than distinct from its environment... a compelling read'' Jake Arnott, Guardian''The novel is fleet-footed... the way even the minor characters flare into life gives the novel richness and depth... a novel fit for shifting, uncertain times'' Suzi Feay, Financial Times

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2023

A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by sixteen bestselling, award-winning writers.''Wonderful . . . all killer, no filler'' Red Magazine''Dazzling stories, as inventive as they are inspiring'' Daily Mirror''Where power and feminist rage meet'' StylistBANSHEE. DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO.For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood; words that tell a story. In this blazing cauldron of a book, sixteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time.STORIES BY: Margaret Atwood, Susie Boyt, Eleanor Crewes, Emma Donoghue, Stella Duffy, Linda Grant, Annie Hodson, Claire Kohda, CN Lester, Kirsty Logan, Caroline O''Donoghue, Chibundu Onuzo, Helen Oyeyemi, Rachel Seiffert, Kamila Shamsie, Ali Smith, with an Introduction by Sandi Toksvig

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZEIn a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then one morning a glamorous uncle appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. Why is Uncle Sándor so violently unwelcome in her parents'' home?This is a novel about survival - both banal and heroic - and a young woman who discovers the complications, even betrayals, that inevitably accompany the fierce desire to live. Set against the backdrop of a London from the 1950s to the present day, The Clothes on Their Backs is a wise and tender novel about the clothes we choose to wear, the personalities we dress ourselves in, and about how they define us all.

A good handbag makes the outfit. Only the rich can afford cheap shoes. The only thing worse than being skint is looking as if you''re skint.''For centuries, an interest in clothes has been dismissed as the trivial pursuit of vain empty-headed women. Yet, clothes matter, whether you are interested in fashion or not because what we choose to dress ourselves in defines our identity. For the immigrant arriving in a new country to the teenager who needs to be part of the fashion pack or the woman turning forty who must reassess her wardrobe, the truth is that how we look and what we wear, tells a story. And what a story. THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER tells us how a woman''s hat saved her life in Nazi Germany, looks at the role of department stores in giving women a public place outside the home, savours the sheer joy of finding the right dress. Here is the thinking woman''s guide to our relationship with what we wear: why we want to look our best and why it matters. THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER celebrates the pleasure of adornment

Alix, arrogant, middle-aged and angry comes home to the derelict port of Liverpool as her mother lies dying. Irritably resigned to living alone for the rest of her life she suddenly finds herself erotically attracted to a stranger. Joseph is an American architect who has come to the city to build a hotel. Refusing to accept that his wife has left him or the trauma of a war he once fought in, the question is whether these survivors of the battles of the Seventies are meant for each other or not. And what happened to a factory in Dresden which long ago made the perfect face cream . . .''Perhaps her most accessible novel to date ... Grant''s prose is blunt, honest, yet often beautiful and bitingly funny. Equally comfortable discussing concepts of justice and grooming routinme, the voices Grant creates are striking and authentic. Her characters are irascible, witty, fierce, and full of the contradictions and blind spots that make them wholly human. This is a compelling and satisfying novel'' Rachel Seiffert, author of The Dark Room

The further away anyone was from that block of Ben Yehuda street, the easier it seemed to find a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, that stubborn mess in the centre of the Middle East and the more I studied these solutions, the more I thought that they depended for their implementation on a population of table football men, painted in the colours of the two teams: blue and white for the Israelis, green, red and black for the Palestinians. All the international community had to do was to twist the levers and the little players would kick and swing and send the ball into the net, to victory'' One block of a Tel Aviv street is the starting point for Linda Grant''s exploration of the inner dynamics of Israelis - not the government and its policies, but the people themselves, in all their variety. Iraqi shop-keepers, Teenage soldiers, Mob bosses, Tunisian-born settlers, Russian scientists, and the father of the child victim of a suicide bomber are some of the people she meets.

''If you go back and look at your life there are certain scenes, acts, or maybe just incidents on which everything that follows seems to depend. If only you could narrate them, then you might be understood. I mean the part of yourself that you don''t know how to explain.'' In the early seventies, a glamorous and androgynous couple known as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas, they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But their mesmerising flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties and hidden histories. For Adele, who also has something to conceal, Evie becomes an obsession - an obsession which becomes lifelong after the night of Adele''s twentieth birthday party. What happened that evening and who was complicit are questions that have haunted Adele ever since. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for the past forty years. From summers in 1970s Cornwall to London in the twenty-first century, long after she has disappeared, Evie will go on challenging everyone''s ideas of how their lives should turn out. With her hallmark humour, intelligence and boldness Linda Grant has written a powerful and captivating novel about secrets and the moments that shape our lives.