Sarah winman author biography examples

A catastrophic flood in Florence in was the inspiration for Sarah Winman’s fourth novel, Still Life. A former actor for many years, Winman had her first novel, the bestselling When God Was a Rabbit, published in Between A Year of Marvellous Ways () and Tin Man (), she took a short course in Renaissance art in the National Gallery of London; classes which turned out to be the catalyst for Still Life.

“As a result of the course, I went to Florence,” she says, on the phone from her home in London. “I was in a restaurant having lunch and I looked up and noticed a photograph. It was Florence under water. And I did a double take, because I wondered if it was Venice.”

It wasn’t Venice. It was images from the Florentine flood of half a century earlier, that had claimed lives and destroyed countless thousands of artworks. The restaurant owner saw her interest, and came over to show her a book, with other images of the city from that time. Winman was staggered by what she initially learned from him about the flood, and then later, through her own research.

The river Arno flooding had happened at night and without warning. In the chaos that ensued, there was little chance to rescue some of the city’s vast treasury of artworks, many of them in churches, libraries and galleries closed for the night. Although cataloguing was imprecise, it is estimated some 14, pieces of portable artworks had either been destroyed or severely damaged.

Mud Angels

“What was left when the floodwaters receded was about a tonne of mud for every citizen who lived there,” Winman says. “Young people and art restorers came from all over the world to help clean the city, and they were called Mud Angels. And of course I am an incredible romantic, and I thought that was one of the most romantic things I had heard: that there was this sense of togetherness, that people came, and not only did they want to help save art, they were helpi

British author and actress (born )

Sarah Winman (born 24 December ) is a British author and actress.

Biography

In , Winman's debut novel, When God Was a Rabbit (), became an international bestseller and won Winman several awards including New Writer of the Year in the Galaxy National Book Awards.

Winman's second novel, A Year of Marvellous Ways (), was published on 18 June

Winman's third novel, Tin Man, was published on 27 July and shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards.

Winman's fourth novel, Still Life, was published on 1 June

Winman is an openly lesbian woman, who came out in the early 80’s.

Acting credits

References

Bibliography

• Winman, Sarah (), When God Was a Rabbit, Headline Review, ISBN&#;
• Winman, Sarah (), A Year of Marvellous Ways, Headline Review, ISBN&#;
• Winman, Sarah (), Tin Man, Tinder Press, ISBN&#;
• Winman, Sarah (), Still Life, Fourth Estate, ISBN&#;

External links

Sarah Winman is the author of  the brilliant When God Was A Rabbit. Her latest novel, A Year of Marvellous Ways was released by Tinder Press at the beginning of the summer and I am very pleased to be welcoming her to Novel Kicks today. Hi Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little about your latest novel,  A Year of Marvellous Ways.

A Year of Marvellous Ways is set in , in Cornwall. At the start of the book, old Marvellous is in her 90 year and coming to the end of her life. She has one last thing to do before she dies, but she doesn’t know what it is yet, because the message came to her in a dream, and the dream said, Wait, for it’s coming. So she waits, sitting on the bank of her creek.

When a young soldier, Drake, broken by war, washes up in her creek, Marvellous realises that she has been waiting for him. And the last thing she has to do is to re-ignite the flame of hope in this young man’s heart. And she does this by telling him the story of her life. The book is about the redemptive power of storytelling.

Do you cast your characters and if so, did you have someone specific in mind for Marvellous and Drake?

Marvellous would have to be the wonderful Judi Dench – playing older, of course. She would be terrific and heartbreaking in the role. In fact, I can totally see her doing it right now! I would cast an unknown alongside her, though.

Do you have any writing rituals (writing in silence, writing longhand, a cup of tea etc.)

I do write in silence – never any music playing as that can influence me emotionally. I write on a laptop at home, breaking for copious amounts of tea! When I go out I always carry a notebook and therefore write in longhand. I wrote a lot of Marvellous in bed, strangely enough, as cocooned as possible, with a candle burning.

Who is your favourite fictional character and what’s the one thing you would ask him/her if you were to ever meet?

I would ask Owen Meany to tell me a

“Still Life” evokes the rich sensory palette of Florence

by Sally Jane Smith, Book Club Co-Host

It was a hot September afternoon when I stepped onto the station platform at Firenze Santa Maria Novella in We were on our way from Cinque Terre to Venice, with just four hours in Florence between one train and the next. We each had our own idea of how best to spend this time. My friend packed her aching feet onto a hop-on-hop-off tour bus to see as many iconic sites as possible. My own feet ached to tread the sunbaked stones of the city, and I set off on foot with my Lonely Planet – the Baedeker of my generation – in my hand.

Sarah Winman’s Still Life is set primarily in the Tuscan town I remember from that precious afternoon. In my mind, it’s a town that tastes of burnt umber and smells like terracotta – even though I’ve never tasted the pigment, and I’m not sure that terracotta actually has a smell. It is a city shaped by its river, bathed in a warm glow of light and saturated in artistic expression. The sensory palette of Florence has inspired countless creatives through the centuries – painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, writers, and more – in their attempts to capture its complexity. Everywhere you look, it feels as if art is gazing back at you.

Winman’s novel is aptly named, as it is itself a work of art. It portrays a life both still, in every sense of the word, and always progressing – through time, through the complexity of human relationships, through the personal and global challenges faced by its rich cast of characters. Even the protagonist’s vocation as a globe-maker can be read as a metaphor for the remaking of a world as the characters rebuild their lives after war, their homes after natural disaster, and their sense of self-worth as they reclaim or redeem their own flawed pasts. A steady ray of hope – and flashes of wonderful humour – shines through the narrativ