Sarah Dunant


Sarah Dunant is a British novelist, journalist, broadcaster, and critic.
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Early life

Dunant was born in 1950 and raised in London. She is the daughter of David Dunant, a former Welsh airline steward who later became a manager at British Airways, and his French wife Estelle, who grew up in Bangalore, India.
She went to Godolphin and Latymer, a local girls' grammar school. She then studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was involved in the amateur theatrical club Footlights. After she graduated, she earned an actor's equity card and moved to Tokyo, Japan. In Tokyo, she worked as an English teacher and nightclub hostess for six months, before returning home through Southeast Asia.

Broadcasting career

She worked at BBC Radio 4 for two years in London, producing its then arts magazine programme 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 a Hot Climate, a thriller about the early cocaine trade in Colombia.
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 contributes regularly to radio, as an occasional presenter for BBC Radio 4's opinion slot A Point of View. and more recently delivering a series of five original essays on Isabella d'Este and the art of writing historical fiction, entitled Unearthing the Past.

Writing

Dunant started writing in her late twenties, first with a friend, with whom she produced two political thrillers and a five-part BBC1 drama series – Thin Air, starring Kate Hardie, Nicky Henson and Clive Merrison, broadcast in 1988 – before going solo with her thriller Snow Storms in a Hot Climate.
Her 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 storytelling, as a way to explore accurate history and serious subject matter to reach a large audience. This has included 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 called Hannah Wolfe, spotlighting issues such as surrogacy, cosmetic surgery, animal rights, and violence to women. Sexual violence was also at the centre of Transgressions was an icon of fashion and style.
As a journalist, Dunant has reviewed for many UK newspapers, as well as for The New York Times, and edited two books of essays on political correctness and millennial anxieties. She works regularly in Radio and print.

Awards/citations

Dunant's crime novels were three times shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award, and in 1994 she won a Silver Dagger for Fatlands.
In 2010, Sacred Hearts was shortlisted for the first Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, an award that highlighted the growing power and popularity of the form.
She is an accredited lecturer for NADFAS, the UK arts charity that 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.
Dunant was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.

Views

In her journalism and public speaking, Dunant is among other things, a feminist, and an advocate for legalisation of marijuana. A Catholic by birth, she has also written about the role and importance of religion in history and the need for Catholicism to reform itself.

Mystery

Marla Masterson (co-written with Peter Busby as Peter Dunant)

  1. Exterminating Angels, 1983. London: David & Charles.
  2. Intensive Care, 1986. London: Andre Deutsch.

Hannah Wolfe

  1. Birth Marks, 1992. New York: Doubleday.
  2. Fatlands, 1993. New York: Penzler Books.
  3. Under My Skin, 1995. New York: Scribner Book Co.

Standalone

Snow Storms in a Hot Climate, 1988. New York: Random House. Transgressions, 1997. New York: HarperCollins. Mapping the Edge, 1999. New York: Random House.

Historical novels of the Italian Renaissance

The Borgias

  1. Blood and Beauty, 2013. London: Virago Press.
  2. In the Name of the Family, 2017. London: Virago Press.

Standalone

The Birth of Venus, 2003. New York: Random House.In the Company of the Courtesan, 2006. London: Virago Press. Sacred Hearts, 2009. New York: Random House. The Marchesa 2025. Whitefox, ISBN 978-1-9177523-08-0 an illustrated novel on the life, letters and times of Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua

Non-Fiction

The War of the Words: The Political Correctness Debate, 1995. London: Virago Press. The Age of Anxiety, 1996. London: Virago Press.

Awards