SUSANNA
CLARKE
Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham, England, in 1959. The daughter of a Methodist minister, she studied History, Philosophy, and Politics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
She worked as a commissioning editor for publishing houses. In the early 1990s, she taught English in Turin and Bilbao before returning to England, where she resumed her career in publishing.
During this period, she began writing the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which was published in 2004 to critical acclaim and commercial success, winning major awards including the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and being named Best Novel of 2004 by Time magazine.
In 2015, it was adapted for television as a BBC miniseries. This was followed in 2006 by the short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories.
In the years that followed, Clarke’s health deteriorated and she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Her writing pace slowed significantly, and plans for a sequel to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell were put on hold.
In 2020, during the pandemic, she published Piranesi, which also achieved critical and commercial success, was translated into 31 languages, and won the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Susanna Clarke lives in Manchester with her partner Colin Greenland, a writer and critic.