Sarah Waters
| Sarah Waters | |
|---|---|
Waters at a book signing for The Night Watch
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| Born |
21 July 1966 Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1998–present |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Website | |
| www |
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Sarah Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1966.
She grew up in a family that included her father Ron, mother Mary, and a sister. Her mother was a housewife and her father an engineer who worked on oil refineries. She describes her family as "pretty idyllic, very safe and nurturing". Her father, "a fantastically creative person", encouraged her to build and invent.
Waters said, "When I picture myself as a child, I see myself constructing something, out of plasticine or papier-mâché or Meccano; I used to enjoy writing poems and stories, too." She wrote stories and poems that she describes as "dreadful gothic pastiches", but had not planned her career. Despite her obvious enjoyment of writing, she did not feel any special calling or preference for becoming a novelist in her youth.
After Milford Haven Grammar School, Waters attended university and earned degrees in English literature. She received a BA from the University of Kent, an MA from Lancaster University, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. Her PhD thesis, entitled Wolfskins and togas : lesbian and gay historical fictions, 1870 to the present, served as inspiration and material for future books. As part of her research she read 19th-century pornography, in which she came across the title of her first book, Tipping the Velvet. However, her literary influences are also found in the popular classics of Victorian literature, such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and the Brontës, and in the contemporary novelists that combine a keen interest in Victoriana with a post-modernist approach to fiction, especially A.S. Byatt and John Fowles. Angela Carter's 'Nights at the Circus' had a huge influence on her début novel as well, and Waters praises her for her literary prose, her "common touch", and her commitment to feminism.
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Wikipedia