Sarah Dunant

Early life

Dunant was born and grew up in London, the daughter of David Dunant, a Welsh airline steward and later manager at British Airways, and his French wife Estelle, who was brought up in Bangalore, India.

She was educated at the local girls grammar school, Godolphin and Latymer. From there she won a place at Newnham College, Cambridge where she read history and was involved in theatre and Footlights. After graduation and a brief spell earning an Equity Card in the acting profession, she moved to Tokyo, where she was an English teacher and nightclub hostess for six months, before travelling home through South East Asia.

Broadcasting career

Back in London she worked for two years at BBC Radio 4, producing its then arts magazine Kaleidoscope, before travelling again, this time overland through North, Central and South America, a trip that became research material for her first solo novel Snow Storms in Hot Climate (1988) a thriller about the early cocaine trade in Colombia *(1)

She went on to work extensively in radio and television, most notably as a presenter of BBC2’s late night live arts programme The Late Show in the 1990s and Night Waves, BBC Radio 3’s nightly cultural discussion programme.

She still contributes regularly to radio, and is an occasional presenter for BBC Radio 4’s opinion slot ”A Point of View”.

Writing

Dunant started writing in her late twenties, first with a friend, with whom she produced two political thrillers and a six part BBC1 drama series Thin Air, broadcast in 1989, 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 story telling, 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*2) 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.*(3)

In 2000, an extended visit to Florence changed her working life. In what she acknowledged was something of a midlife crisis * 4 Her old passion for history was reignited, a she started to research the impact of the renaissance on the city in the 1490’s. 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 (*5) allowed Dunant to devote herself full time to writing and research concentrating of the most current work being done in renaissance studies, most particularly concerning the lives of women. (*6) The novel Sacred Hearts, a story of nuns in an enclosed convent in 16th 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 history of the Borgia family, seeking to separate the colourful historical truth from the smear and gossip that built up during their lives, and in history after their deaths. (*7) It has made her a passionate advocate for better historical accuracy in popular TV series like “The Borgias.” (*8)

As a journalist she has reviewed for all of the Uk’s papers, edited two books of Essays on Political Correctness and Millennium anxieties, and currently reviews for the New York Times.

Awards/Citations

Her crime novels were three times shortlisted for the CWA Golden dagger award, and in 1994 she won a silver dagger for Fatlands. (8*) In 2010 Sacred Hearts was shortlisted for the first ever Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize, an award which highlighted the growing power and popularity of the form. (*9)

She is an accredited lecturer for NASFAS 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.

Personal life

She is married with two grown up daughters and divides her time between London and Italy.

Views

In her journalism and public speaking she is an unrepentant liberal baby boomer, feminist and an advocate for legalisation of Marijuana *10 and *11) A Catholic by birth she has also written about the importance of religion in history and the need for Catholicism to reform itself. (*12)

Awards