Date of Birth: 1966.
Nationality: English.
Book on Booker longlist: The Night Watch, which tells the story of four Londoners living in the city during the Blitz.
adOther books: Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999) and Fingersmith (2002).
Awards: 1999 Betty Trask Award for Tipping the Velvet; 1999 Library Journal's Best Book of the Year for Tipping the Velvet; 1999 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for Tipping the Velvet; 1999 New York Times Notable Book of the Year Award for Tipping the Velvet; 2000 American Library Association GLBT Roundtable Book Award for Affinity; 2000 erro-Grumley Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction for Affinity; 2000 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction for Tipping the Velvet; 2000 Somerset Maugham Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction for Affinity; 2000 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for Affinity; 2002 British Book Awards Author of the Year for Fingersmith; and 2002 Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger for Fingersmith. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002 for Fingersmith.
Interesting facts: She was inspired to write her debut novel
while working on her PhD thesis on lesbian historical fiction. In 2003
she was nominated by Granta magazine as one of twenty Best of Young British Novelists.
Online resources:
The author's official site
Author interview on Booksense.com
Profile on Contemporary Writers website
An article in the Guardian written by Sarah Waters
Entry on Wikipedia
Reading Matters comment: I think you can say that Sarah Waters
-- in the UK at least -- is a household name, helped in part by the BBC
TV adaptation of her debut novel in 2002. I've not read any of her
books because I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, but The Night Watch is very tempting! I suspect it will make the shortlist.
