Sarah LeFanu

Sarah LeFanu’s 2012 memoir/biography of postcolonial Africa S Is for Samora: a lexical biography of Samora Machel and the Mozambican dream was called ‘a cracking biography’ in the Independent and praised by Henning Mankell as ‘vivid and clear-eyed’. Her most recent book Dreaming of Rose: a biographer’s journal explores the pleasures and pains of biographical writing through an account of the writing of her ‘rich and perceptive’ biography of Rose Macaulay. She is also the author of two books on science fiction and fantasy, one of which, In the Chinks of the World Machine: feminism and science fiction, won the prestigious MLA award. Her stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, along with two radio plays Thin Woman in a Morris Minor and Death Bredon. She works regularly on abridgements and dramatisations for Radio 4’s Book of the Week, Book at Bedtime and Woman’s Hour.

From 2004 to 2009 she was artistic director of the Bath Literature Festival. For more than 10 years she has been a part-time tutor for the University of Bristol’s department for lifelong learning, and for the university’s creative-writing diploma. She also teaches on the BA in English literature and community engagement.