Zizou Corder

Louisa Young is an award-winning best-selling British novelist, short-story writer, biographer and journalist, whose work is published in 32 languages. As of 2017, she has published six novels under her own name and five under the nom de plume Zizou Corder, with her daughter Isabel Adomakoh Young. Her eleventh novel, Devotion, was published in June 2016. She is also the author of two non-fiction books, The Book of the Heart (Flamingo, 2000) and A Great Task of Happiness (Macmillan, 1995; Lulu, 2012). Her fiction is published by The Borough Press, an imprint of HarperCollins. Her interim agent is Sarah Ballard at United Agents, London W1, and for film and TV rights, St John Donald, also at United Agents. She is currently working on a memoir about her life with the composer Robert Lockhart.

Louisa Young was born in London, England. Her father was the politician and writer Wayland Young, Lord Kennet. Her mother was Elizabeth Young, Lady Kennet. She has several siblings, including the sculptor Emily Young.

She was educated at Hallfield Primary School, Paddington; St Paul's Girls' School; Westminster School; and Trinity College Cambridge.

She worked as a subeditor and freelance journalist on several publications including the Guardian (for which she wrote columns for many years), the Sunday Times, the Daily Express, Marie Claire (where she was lead feature writer and for a while Features Editor, under Glenda Bailey), Tatler, Bike Magazine, and Motorcycle International. She also worked at various stages as a despatch rider, a busker (double bass and vocals), a waitress, a kitchen-hand and a shop assistant. Her first book, A Great Task of Happiness, a biography of her grandmother Kathleen Scott, widow of Captain Scott of the Antarctic, was published by MacMillan in 1995 (paperback 1996, ), and reissued as a POD on Lulu in 2012. It was followed by three novels set in London and Egypt: Baby Love, Desiring Cairo, and Tree of Pearls (Flamingo), which were reissued by The Borough Press in 2015. Baby Love was listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. They were followed in 2002 by The Book of the Heart (Flamingo), a cultural history symbolism involving the heart, covering its historical role in art, religion, love and anatomy. In 2007, she was a curatorial advisor for the Wellcome Foundation's exhibition The Heart, which was inspired by her book.

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