Candia McWilliam

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	Photo: © Jerry Bauer

Biography

Candia McWilliam was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1955 and educated at Girton College, Cambridge. She won a Vogue writing competition in 1971 and worked for the magazine between 1976 and 1979.

Her first novel, the macabre A Case of Knives (1988), was joint winner of the Betty Trask Prize. It was followed by A Little Stranger, a disturbing tale of domestic life, in 1989. Both books won Scottish Arts Council Book Awards. Debatable Land (1994) won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign novel of the year. The book follows the adventures of the crew of a yacht sailing from Tahiti to New Zealand, exploring each character's differing experience of loneliness and exile.

Her book, Wait till I Tell You (1997), is a collection of short stories. She has also written introductions to editions of Elizabeth Taylor's A Wreath of Roses (1994), Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince (1999), Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (2000), and Henry James's The Golden Bowl (2001), as well as to work by Elizabeth Bowen, and she is a regular reviewer for a number of newspapers.

Her latest book is What to Look for in Winter (2009).

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Genres (in alphabetical order)

Fiction, Short stories

Bibliography

A Case of Knives   Bloomsbury, 1988

A Little Stranger   Bloombury, 1989

A Wreath of Roses/Elizabeth Taylor   (introduction)   Virago, 1994

Debatable Land   Bloomsbury, 1994

Change of Use   Bloomsbury, 1996

Wait till I Tell You   Bloomsbury, 1997

Shorts 2: The Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Collection   (editor)   Polygon, 1999

The Black Prince/Iris Murdoch   (introduction)   Vintage, 1999

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie/Muriel Spark   (introduction)   Penguin, 2000

The Golden Bowl/Henry James   (introduction)   Penguin, 2001

Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary   (with Ruby Ferguson)   Persephone Books, 2004

What to Look for in Winter   Jonathan Cape, 2009

Read about books by Candia McWilliam at encompassculture.com - the British Council's book database and global online book club

Buy books by Candia McWilliam at Amazon.co.uk

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Prizes and awards

1988   Betty Trask Prize   (joint winner)   A Case of Knives

1988   Scottish Arts Council Book Award   A Case of Knives

1989   McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year   (shortlist)   A Little Stranger

1989   Scottish Arts Council Book Award   A Little Stranger

1994   Guardian Fiction Prize   Debatable Land

1994   McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year   (shortlist)   Debatable Land

1994   Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy)   (for the best foreign novel of the year)   Debatable Land

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Contact information

Publisher (General enquiries) Bloomsbury Publishing plc 38 Soho Square London  W1D 3HB England Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 2111 Fax: +44 (0)20 7434 0151 E-mail: publicity@bloomsbury.com http://www.bloomsbury.com

Agent Aitken Alexander Associates Ltd. 18-21 Cavaye Place London  SW10 9PT England Tel: +44 (0)20 7373 8672 Fax: +44 (0)20 7373 6002 http://www.aitkenalexander.co.uk

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