Who are you looking for?

Install Famoose

Keep Famoose on your home screen or desktop for easy access.

Open this site in Chrome or Edge and look for Install app in the browser menu or address bar. If no install option appears, you can bookmark Famoose instead.

Famoose.co
Appearance
Text size
Page width
Colour
Discover›Literature
Contents
Helen Dunmore
Novelist

Helen Dunmore

Famoose for

Writing A Spell of Winter and The Siege

The Siege · Inside the Wave

Born
12 December 1952
Birthplace
Beverley
Died
5 June 2017

More people

Jane AustenWriting Pride and Prejudice and Emma.Charles DickensWriting Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.Toni MorrisonWriting Beloved and winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Helen Dunmore

Helen Dunmore wrote fiction, poetry and books for younger readers. Her novels often placed intimate relationships against historical upheaval, while her final poetry collection reflected on mortality.

Early life

York and Finland

Studied English at the University of York, then taught in Finland before settling in Bristol.

Career

  1. 1993

    First novel

    Published Zennor in Darkness.

  2. 1996

    Orange Prize

    Won the inaugural award for A Spell of Winter.

  3. 2017

    Final publications

    Published Birdcage Walk and Inside the Wave.

Selected work

The Siege

Set a family story during the siege of Leningrad.

Inside the Wave

The poetry collection received posthumous Costa awards.

Beyond work

Family

Married lawyer Frank Charnley in 1980 and had a son, daughter and stepson.

Sources & photo creditBiography and career ↗Biographical references ↗

Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.

Photo: Phil. CC BY 2.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.