Booker Prize-winning English novelist, poet, essayist and biographer.

In 2008, The Times included her in a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2012, The Observer named her final novel, The Blue Flower, as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

Her novels include:

The Golden Child (1977)

The Bookshop (1978)

Offshore (1979)

Human Voices (1980)

At Freddie's (1982)

Innocence (1986)

The Beginning of Spring (1988)

The Gate of Angels (1990)

The Blue Flower (1995, UK, 1997, US)