Nell Dunn – författare

In 1964, Nell Dunn spoke to nine of her friends over a bottle of wine about men, sex, work, money, babies, freedom and love. Novelist Edna O'Brien remembers being 'very frightened' of having her nipples touched. The Pop Artist Pauline Boty says she got married to the 'first man I could talk very freely to'. Kathy Collier, who Dunn worked with in a Battersea sweet factory, confesses that she had thought about suicide. After more than forty years out of print, Talking to Women is still as sparkling, honest, profound, funny and wise as when it was first published. With a new afterword by Nell Dunn.

THE BESTSELLLING CLASSIC OF SIXTIES LONDON'Touching, truthful and fresh - a tour de force' MARGARET DRABBLE 'Hilarious, heartbreaking' PARIS REVIEW'Her art is ignited by voice' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN'Exuberantly alive' SUNDAY TIMESTo think when I was a kid I planned to conquer the world and if anyone saw me now they'd say, 'She's had a rough night, poor cow.'Joy - twenty-one, bleach-blonde, a head full of dreams - walks down Fulham Broadway in a maternity dress and high suede shoes, carrying her week-old baby. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat in Ruislip, all new lino and fitted carpets. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy to move in with Auntie Emm - and to grapple with motherhood, modelling and unreliable men. Exuberant, earthy and tender, Poor Cow was a revelatory portrait of sixties London life. INTRODUCED BY MARGARET DRABBLE

Steaming is set in the 'Turkish Room' of a run-down Public Baths in the East End of London, where five women regularly meet, to bathe, relax and share their troubles. When it was written, Steaming was groundbreaking for having an almost all-female cast.

Nobody writes like Nell Dunn... always communally, with rare honesty, with love, and with calm and ground-breaking understanding... It's glorious. Ali Smith The Muse is all it could be; an act of sharing that goes beyond particular experience to take us to a happy realm of natural sisterhood. TLSNell Dunn has perfect pitch for the words we use and for the loves and mysteries of the human heart. Carmen Callil Defiant, funny and exhilarating. The Muse is so high-spirited and full of a sense of adventure. Margaret DrabbleThis slim volume is entertaining... You long to know more about Nell's lifeDaily MailThe Muse is the story of a life-changing friendship. It starts with Nell's account of a chance meeting with Josie at the age of 22.Josie teaches her how to live for moment, how to have adventures and find the sweetness of life even in hardship. This was the Sixties, a time of literary and sexual experimentation, of the breakdown of old barriers and inhibitions Even as she was hooking up with dodgy men, Josie always carried herself like a star, and as the inspiration for the ground-breaking novel of working class women Poor Cow and the play Steaming - both of which were made into movies - she became one, feted by producers on Broadway.Life is the thing, was Josie's motto. But where would her philosophy of taking no care for tomorrow lead her?In prose of unique clarity and simplicity that always gets straight to the heart of matter, The Muse follows this friendship over the decades.

Nobody writes like Nell Dunn... always communally, with rare honesty, with love, and with calm and ground-breaking understanding... It's glorious. Ali Smith The Muse is all it could be; an act of sharing that goes beyond particular experience to take us to a happy realm of natural sisterhood. TLSNell Dunn has perfect pitch for the words we use and for the loves and mysteries of the human heart. Carmen Callil Defiant, funny and exhilarating. The Muse is so high-spirited and full of a sense of adventure. Margaret DrabbleThis slim volume is entertaining... You long to know more about Nell's lifeDaily MailThe Muse is the story of a life-changing friendship. It starts with Nell's account of a chance meeting with Josie at the age of 22.Josie teaches her how to live for moment, how to have adventures and find the sweetness of life even in hardship. This was the Sixties, a time of literary and sexual experimentation, of the breakdown of old barriers and inhibitions Even as she was hooking up with dodgy men, Josie always carried herself like a star, and as the inspiration for the ground-breaking novel of working class women Poor Cow and the play Steaming - both of which were made into movies - she became one, feted by producers on Broadway.Life is the thing, was Josie's motto. But where would her philosophy of taking no care for tomorrow lead her?In prose of unique clarity and simplicity that always gets straight to the heart of matter, The Muse follows this friendship over the decades.

THE BESTSELLING NOVEL BY NELL DUNN'Her art is ignited by voice . . . as you hear it, is unquestionable' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN 'Touching, truthful and fresh' MARGARET DRABBLE 'Nell Dunn's hilarious, heartbreaking Poor Cow, about a single mother in sixties London' PARIS REVIEW Joy - also called Blossom, Sunshine and Blondie by the men in her life - walks down Fulham Broadway carrying her week-old baby, Jonny. She is twenty-one with bleached hair, high suede shoes and a head full of dreams. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat - 'the world was our oyster and we chose Ruislip'. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy and Jonny to move in with Auntie Emm. This is Joy's story: an exuberant, pink-lipsticked, tale of London life, love and young motherhood in the sixties . . . Poor Cow explores the life of a young working-class girl in the swinging sixties as she navigates the consequences of her decisions. Nell Dunn's 1967 novel was also made into a film directed by Ken Loach.