Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Helen Dunmore
-
Standard Name: Dunmore, Helen
Birth Name: Helen Dunmore
Married Name: Helen Charnley
HD
first established herself as a poet, but became internationally known as a novelist when she won the Orange Prize in 1996. A prolific writer, she also had considerable success with books for children.
This amazingly complex novel received very positive reviews in Britain. Helen Dunmore
in The Times called the plot huge and vigorous and the novel rewarding, incisive and topical.
Marina Warner: Novelist and Mythographer. http://www.marinawarner.com.
The Betrayal, GS
chose (as she quite often did) a title used by others as well. In this case...
Anthologization
Jo Shapcott
JS
had already appeared with Helen Dunmore
and Matthew Sweeney
in 1997 in Penguin Modern Poets volume 12. Writing by her was included in three anthologies in the year 2001. Andrew Motion
placed her work...
Anthologization
Jo Shapcott
JS
was, with Helen Dunmore
, U. A. Fanthorpe
, and Elizabeth Jennings
, one of the four poets featured in no. 5 of the audio-cassette series The Poetry Quartets, issued today by the...
Literary responses
Kamila Shamsie
A review for Transnational Literature noted the serendipitous coincidence which saw this novel published at the centenary of World War I, and noted that KS
addresses more than a few of the blind spots in...
Textual Features
Carol Rumens
In her introduction CR
calls for quality and professionalism. Those women writers, she says, who have been concerned with the stern art of poetry as an end in itself have tended to be swamped by...
Literary responses
Michèle Roberts
Reviewing this novel of considered maturity for the Guardian, Helen Dunmore
called MRa magnificent writer of the body and a poet who writes in concise and rhythmically paced prose.
Bianchi, Martha Dickinson, and Emily Dickinson. The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson. Biblo and Tannen.
The TLS review found Kazantzis to be a dominantly visual poet, at her best in short, evocative pieces...
Anthologization
Elizabeth Jennings
The Leamington Poetry Society
published a 4-page leaflet (plus cover) of EJ
's poems, titled with her name, in March 1987.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Twelve years later the British Council
published an audiocassette of poetry which features her...
Textual Production
U. A. Fanthorpe
She co-operated with others in many further works. She appeared with Tony Lopez
in Mortal Heart, 1981. In 1994 she participated in two joint projects: Painter and Poet: Three Poems (limited edition), where her...
Literary responses
Ruth Fainlight
The younger poet Helen Dunmore
, reviewing this book, found RF
's voice capable of being cutting as well as lyrical, particularly when addressing the topics of the apparatus of femininity, and of growing older.A...
Reception
Ruth Fainlight
RF
has drawn appreciative comment from fellow poets and writers like Helen Dunmore
, A. S. Byatt
, and Elaine Feinstein
(who has written that in a time when every poet is wooed by the...
Literary responses
Catherine Cookson
At one time, CC
titles constituted one third of all the books loaned by Britain's public libraries.
Collini, Stefan. “The Cookson Story”. London Review of Books, pp. 33-5.
33
With 123 million copies sold by the end of 1998,
Jones, Kathleen. Catherine Cookson: The Biography. Constable.
320
she was one of the best-selling...
Literary responses
Kate Clanchy
Helen Dunmore
, on the cover, imagines that KC
may become a genuinely popular poet, not because she writes down to her audience, but because she writes about what we know in such a way...
Timeline
After 18 February 1914: Leonard Woolf published his second novel,...
Writing climate item
After 18 February 1914
Leonard Woolf
published his second novel, The Wise Virgins (which he had begun to write on his honeymoon). Quite different in genre from his first, it is a roman à clef reputedly presenting harsh caricatures...
4 September 1941: German troops laid siege to Leningrad (now...
National or international item
4 September 1941
German troops laid siege to Leningrad (now St Petersburg).
14 May 2013: The Zoological Society of London (better...
Writing climate item
14 May 2013
The Zoological Society of London
(better known as the London Zoo
) launched a series of Writers Talks, in which a professuonal writer joined with a scientist and a zoo-keeper to talk about a particular...
Texts
Dunmore, Helen. “A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie—review”. theguardian.com.
Dunmore, Helen. A Spell of Winter. Viking, 1995.
Dunmore, Helen. Bestiary. Bloodaxe Books, 1997.
Dunmore, Helen. “Beyond the Book”. The Tide Knot, HarperCollins, 2007, pp. 1-14.
