LYNDALL GORDON LONGLISTED FOR WARWICK PRIZE FOR WRITING 2015

Lyndall Gordon has been longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing 2015. Gordon’s memoir, DIVIDED LIVES: DREAMS OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, is among five other non-fiction books longlisted. A shortlist will be announced in October, with the winner will be announced in November.

The Warwick Prize for Writing is awarded biannually, and for the first time this year, has been open for direct submissions from publishers. The longlist consists of seven fiction and five non-fiction books along with a collection of poetry. The winner will receive £25,000 and the chance to take up a short placement at the University of Warwick. Chaired by Warwick alumna and author A.L. Kennedy, the judging panel consists of author and academic Robert Macfarlane, actress and director Fiona Shaw, Warwick alumnus and Lonely Planet founder, Tony Wheeler and physician and writer Gavin Francis.

Lyndall's biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, VINDICATION, was also ranked #15 on the New York Times Culture Bestseller list this month.

Gordon was born in 1941 in Cape Town, to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors. Lyndall was her carer, her ‘secret sharer,’ a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. Written with this renowned biographer’s subtlety and acuity, DIVIDED LIVES is a wonderfully layered memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter. Moving and beautiful, DIVIDED LIVES is a poetic memoir about the pain and joy of being a daughter, that is also an intriguing social history and feminist text, rich in literary reference.

Initially published in hardback by Virago in June 2014, the book has received many excellent reviews. Anne Sebbe of The Jewish Chronicle called it a ‘profoundly moving memoir’ and ‘a tender tribute to a mother who taught her to love and cherish books.’

Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

‘Lyndall Gordon is a rare phenomenon: a biographer whose preoccupations and authorial career reveal a flowering towards imaginative truth.’ – Candia McWilliam, Herald

‘We are in the presence of a committed biographer in whom the amalgamation of passion and sympathy finds memorable expression.’ – Adrian Wright, London Magazine

‘Lyndall Gordon must be one of the most accomplished literary biographers of this generation…outstanding and stimulating.’ – British Book News

FOUR BLAKE FRIEDMANN AUTHORS LONGLISTED FOR SUNDAY TIMES PRIZE IN SOUTH AFRICA

We are delighted to announce that four of our authors have been longlisted for the Sunday Times Prize in South Africa.

WEEPING WATERS by Karin Brynard (translated by Isobel Dixon and Maya Fowler), A SPORTFUL MALICE by Michiel Heyns and RACHEL’S BLUE by Zakes Mda are on the longlist for The Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, formerly the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Now in its fifteenth year, this prize is awarded annually to a novel that is of ‘rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.’

In the non-fiction category, DIVIDED LIVES by Lyndall Gordon has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Non-Fiction Prize. This award, now in its twenty-sixth year, is awarded to non-fiction with ‘compassion, elegance of writing, and intellectual and moral integrity.’

Previous Blake Friedmann winners of these prizes include Ivan Vladislavić (who has won both the fiction and non-fiction prizes for PORTRAIT WITH KEYS and THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET), Marlene van Niekerk for AGAAT (translated by Michiel Heyns), Zakes Mda (HEART OF REDNESS) and Hugh Lewin for STONES AGAINST THE MIRROR.

The shortlists are usually announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival. For more information on both prizes, check out:

http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/04/06/the-2015-sunday-times-barry-ronge-fiction-prize-longlist/

http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/04/06/the-2015-sunday-times-alan-paton-award-longlist/

LYNDALL GORDON’S DIVIDED LIVES PAPERBACK OUT TODAY

Lyndall Gordon’s riveting memoir DIVIDED LIVES: DREAMS OF A MOTHER AND A DAUGHTER is released in paperback today.

Initially published in hardback by Virago in June 2014, the book has received many excellent reviews, including this from Anne Sebba of The Jewish Chronicle, who calls it a ‘profoundly moving memoir’ and ‘a tender tribute to a mother who taught her to love and cherish books.’

On Wednesday 25 February, she will be interviewed at the Jewish Book Week by Louise Jacobs, chief executive of the London Jewish Cultural Centre. This interview will take place in the Raymond Burton House of the Jewish Museum, Camden Town  at 1 PM.

Lyndall will be joining a radio broadcast on Newstalk FM on the 8 March to talk about Henry James. She will also be appearing at several events across the UK in the coming months, where readers will have the opportunity to hear her talk about her memoir and her acclaimed biographies, which include works on T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Bronte, among others.

On Sunday 8 March she’ll be talking about Emily Dickinson at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre, with actress Juliet Stevenson reading Dickinson’s poems.

 On Saturday 28 March, Lyndall will take part in a conversation at the Oxford Literary Festival with Selina Todd, writer and historian at the University of Oxford, to discuss the research and the shaping of narrative in non-fiction. More info and tickets can be found here.

On 5 May, she will appear at the Chipping Campden Literature Festival, with more engagements to be confirmed in the months following.

Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town during the Second World War, where she grew up with a mother who suffered from epilepsy, an illness little understood and scarcely spoken of in the family and community then. DIVIDED LIVES is the gripping and poetic result of an upbringing in which Lyndall was her mother’s carer and companion, sharing stories and a love of poetry and literature, then forging her own way in a changing world.  Exploring family heritage, apartheid, literature and feminism, it is a deeply thought-provoking and inspiring book.

Lyndall’s earlier memoir SHARED LIVES about a group of young women growing to womanhood in 1950s South Africa is also available from Virago.

Visit Lyndall’s website.

Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

‘A biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us. She makes the meaning of their lives sing and sweat as she invites us into their experiences, their longings, their struggles and their disappointments.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer

‘Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today.’ – Catherine Hollis, Sacramento Book Review

‘A gifted storyteller.’ – Carmela Ciuraru, Miami Herald

Praise for DIVIDED LIVES:

‘A wonderful – and at times painful – memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.’ – The Bookseller, Editor’s Picks

‘In this fascinating mix between memoir and biography, we see the struggle of a daughter, to keep an attachment with her mother that is both close and yet boundaried, separate and connected, an attachment in which each can live their dreams.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer

‘Daughterhood, as Lyndall Gordon demonstrates in her intense and semi-poetic family memoir, is a complex and demanding role. In prose both lyrical and meticulous, Gordon describes a relationship … from which no woman is exempt. A disturbing and often beautiful book that confronts heritage, selfishness, infidelity and obsessive secrecy, and which explores and ultimately celebrates the lifelong emotional seesaw between parent and child.’  – Juliet Nicolson, Evening Standard

Lyndall Gordon launches DIVIDED LIVES in South Africa

Acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon will be at Cape Town’s Kalk Bay Bookshop tomorrow, Tuesday 11 November, for the launch of her memoir DIVIDED LIVES. She will be in conversation with Ann Donald at 18.00, before taking questions and signing copies. She will also be appearing at Gorry Bowes-Taylor’s  Literary Lunch on Saturday 15 November, with various radio and magazine interviews throughout the week. On Sunday she will give a talk at 16:00 at the Gitlin Library in Gardens and next week on Thursday 20 November The Book Lounge will hold an evening launch in central Cape Town, where she will be in conversation with Karina Szczurek.

Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town, to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors. Lyndall was her carer, her “secret sharer”, a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. Moving and beautiful, DIVIDED LIVES is a poetic memoir about the pain and joy of being a daughter, and also an intriguing social history and feminist text, rich in literary reference.

Lyndall Gordon is also the prize-winning author of literary biographies of Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brönte, Mary Wollstonecraft, Henry James and T.S. Eliot. All of these biographies are published in the UK by Virago.

Praise for DIVIDED LIVES:

‘A wonderful – and at times painful – memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.’ – The Bookseller, Editor’s Picks

‘A biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us. She makes the meaning of their lives sing and sweat as she invites us into their experiences, their longings, their struggles and their disappointments. In preparation, she has learnt the anguish and the heartbeat of another, the other, her mother, Rhoda, whose presence rules the pages of this memoir. …In this fascinating mix between memoir and biography, we see the struggle of a daughter, to keep an attachment with her mother that is both close and yet boundaried, separate and connected, an attachment in which each can live their dreams.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer

'This quietly devastating book takes us into many strange terrains... one of our most sensitive writers.' – Frances Wilson, Mail on Sunday

Lyndall Gordon’s DIVIDED LIVES out today

Lyndall Gordon’s richly-layered memoir DIVIDED LIVES: DREAMS OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER is published by Virago on 19 June. The award-winning biographer turns her insightful writer’s eye to her own life and her relationship to her mother – an extraordinary and intensely realised tale of loyalty and division; breakdown and recovery; migration and home.

The book has already received excellent reviews, with Susie Orbach in the Observer calling Lyndall ‘a biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us’.

There are  several chances for readers to catch her around the UK talking about the book in coming months.

On 9 July, Lyndall will be at the Telegraph Way With Words Festival at Dartington Hall. She will be talking about Mothers and Daughters, in the Barn at 5pm. Tickets cost £5 and can be booked online.

On 26 July, she  is reading at the Women Writers’ Salon with Maggie Gee, author of VIRGINIA WOOLF IN MANHATTAN, at the Upper Wimpole Street Literary Salon. The event starts at 7 with readings beginning at 7:30. 

Later this year, Lyndall will be appearing at Ilkley literary festival, among others.

Lyndall Gordon was born in 1941 in Cape Town, to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors. Lyndall was her carer, her “secret sharer”, a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. Moving and beautiful, DIVIDED LIVES is a poetic memoir about the pain and joy of being a daughter, that is also an intriguing social history and feminist text, rich in literary reference.

Lyndall Gordon's earlier memoir SHARED LIVES, about her group of young friends growing to womanhood in 1950s Cape Town, is now also available in ebook for the first time.

Visit Lyndall's Website

 Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

'An inspired and unconventional biographer' - Independent on Sunday

 'Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today.' - -  Catherine Hollis, Sacramento Book Review

 'Lyndall Gordon is known for the thoroughness of her research and meticulous attention to detail… a fine researcher's eye… an exceptional and unusual mind.' - -  Janet van Eeden, The Witness

 Praise for DIVIDED LIVES

 ‘A wonderful – and at times painful – memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.’ – The Bookseller, Editor’s Picks

 ‘Daughterhood, as Lyndall Gordon demonstrates in her intense and semi-poetic family memoir, is a complex and demanding role. In prose both lyrical and meticulous, Gordon describes a relationship … from which no woman is exempt. A disturbing and often beautiful book that confronts heritage, selfishness, infidelity and obsessive secrecy, and which explores and ultimately celebrates the lifelong emotional seesaw between parent and child.’  – Juliet Nicolson, Evening Standard

 ‘A biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us. She makes the meaning of their lives sing and sweat as she invites us into their experiences, their longings, their struggles and their disappointments. In preparation, she has learnt the anguish and the heartbeat of another, the other, her mother, Rhoda, whose presence rules the pages of this memoir. …In this fascinating mix between memoir and biography, we see the struggle of a daughter, to keep an attachment with her mother that is both close and yet boundaried, separate and connected, an attachment in which each can live their dreams.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer