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Sarah Waters

Wales (b.1966)

Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a PhD in English Literature and has taught at the Open University.

Genres: Historical

Novels

Tipping the Velvet (1998)
Affinity (1999)
Fingersmith (2002)
The Night Watch (2006)
The Little Stranger (2009)
The Paying Guests (2014)

Anthologies edited

Dancing With Mr Darcy (2009)

Awards

	Betty Trask Award Best First Novel nominee (1999) : Tipping the Velvet
	Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Best Book nominee (2002) : Fingersmith
	The Man Booker Prize Best Novel nominee (2002) : Fingersmith
	James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction Best Book nominee (2006) : The Night Watch
	The Man Booker Prize Best Novel nominee (2006) : The Night Watch
	The Man Booker Prize Best Novel nominee (2009) : The Little Stranger
	Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Best Book nominee (2010) : The Little Stranger
	Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Best Book nominee (2015) : The Paying Guests

Sarah Waters recommends

South Riding (1936)
Winifred Holtby
"A twentieth-century classic."

The Group (1962)
Mary McCarthy
"A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack."

Tony and Susan (1993)
Austin Wright
"So gripping and unsettling... I want to read it all over again."

The Story of My Face (2002)
Kathy Page
"I can't remember the last time I was so compelled, impressed and unsettled by the emotional world of a novel."

The Book of Salt (2003)
Monique Truong
"The Book of Salt reminded me how thrilling really fine writing can be, and how rarely one sees it."

Red Audrey and the Roping (2008)
Jill Malone
"A wonderfully impressive writing debut."

Pretty Monsters (2008)
Kelly Link
"Very scary indeed."

Footnotes to Sex (2009)
Mia Farlane
"A wonderfully impressive first novel: subtle, smart and very funny. I loved this book."

Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer (2010)
Wesley Stace
"A tremendously imaginative novel... beneath its sparkling surface there are some very murky depths. A wonderfully disquieting read."

Mr Fox (2011)
Helen Oyeyemi
"Mr Fox is a wonderfully original novel, full of images and turns of phrase so arresting, so vivid and inventive, its pages almost glow with them. Helen Oyeyemi has given us a work of playful charm and serious narrative pleasure."

This Burns My Heart (2011)
Samuel Park
"This Burns My Heart is a delicate yet powerful story of love, loss, and endurance. The emotional world of the heroine, Soo-Ja, is beautifully realized; I found myself caught up in her dramas from start to finish, and was reluctant to part with her at the novel's close. A lovely, romantic, haunting book."

Man's World (2016)
Rupert Smith
"A funny, poignant and life-affirming novel."

The Other Hoffmann Sister (2017)
Ben Fergusson
"Beguiling, unsettling and wonderfully atmospheric."

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better (2018)
Benjamin Wood
"Wood takes the passing, shabby details of mundane landscapes and makes them jitter and throb with yearning and menace. A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is his best work yet - a novel written from the gut, and with a correspondingly visceral power. A superbly unsettling account of trauma and cautious recovery."

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