Annabel Abbs (born 20 October 1964) is an English writer and novelist.
Early life
The daughter of poet and academic, Professor
Peter Abbs and gardening writer, Barbara Abbs, Annabel Abbs lives in London and East Sussex. She is the eldest of three children and was born in Bristol. She grew up in Bristol, Dorset, Wales, and Lewes in East Sussex.[1][2] She attended
Lewes Priory school[3] and has a BA in English Literature from the
University of East Anglia, and an MA from
Kingston University.[1]
Career
Her first novel, The Joyce Girl, was published in 2016 and tells a fictionalised story of
Lucia Joyce, daughter of
James Joyce.[4][5][6][7] It won the Impress Prize for New Writers,[8][9][10] the Spotlight First Novel Award,[10] was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award,[8] the Caledonia Novel Award and the
Waverton Good Read Award.[9][10]The Joyce Girl was a Reader Pick in The Guardian 2016 and was one of ten books selected for presentation at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival, where it was given Five Stars by the Hollywood Reporter.[11]The Joyce Girl was published in the UK, Ireland, Australia,[12][13] New Zealand,[14] Germany, Turkey,[15] Spain, South America, Bulgaria, Poland and Russia. The Historical Novel Society described The Joyce Girl as "the best 20th century fiction of the year."[16]
Frieda was a 2018 Times Book of the year[17] (historical fiction) and described in The Observer as ‘exuberant’ and ‘compelling’.[18] In 2019 Abbs delivered the annual DH Lawrence Birthday lecture alongside Dr Annalise Grice[19]
In 2019 Abbs was described in The Observer "as one of the best historical novelists today" by literature critic,
Alexander Larman.[20]
Abbs’ first non-fiction book, The Age-Well Project, co-written with, Susan Saunders, was published by
Piatkus in May 2019 and serialised in The Daily Mail and The Guardian.[21][22]
Abbs has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Irish Times, Tatler, The Author, Sydney Morning Herald, The Weekend Australian Review, Psychologies and Elle Magazine. Abbs has spoken at literary festivals and given Masterclasses for The Guardian.[23]
Abbs was a judge of the Impress Prize for New Writers in 2017 and 2019.[24] and supports a post-graduate student of creative writing at the University of East Anglia each year.[25][failed verification]
Controversy
Abbs's first book was criticised in reviews in the
Irish Times and
Irish Examiner for the author's 'unsubstantiated speculations' on matters including incest between Lucia Joyce and her brother, and the causes of her mental illness.[26][27] In A Companion to Literary Biography (ed. Robert Bradford, Wiley Blackwell, 2019), Joyce scholar Professor John McCourt, a trustee of the International James Joyce Foundation,[28][29] wrote that "With Abbs, the perverse cycle of interest in Lucia comes full circle. We are back in the territory of fiction fraudulently posing as biography", and concluded it to be "a prime contender for the worst Joyce-inspired 'biography' ever."[30]
^"Annabel Abbs' novel, The Joyce Girl". Books and Arts program (audio interview with Annabel Abbs). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 28 September 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2017.