Grant, Linda

(British, 1951– )

Linda Grant has made her specialist territory the exploration of a particular kind of female consciousness; her characters cut across stereotypes, at once naïve and world-weary, selfish and self-absorbed, interested both in clothes and in new political ideas. She places these totally believable young women at extraordinary historical moments —whether it be communism in 1950s America in The Cast Iron Shore (1996), or Palestine as the new state of Israel is being created, in the Orange Prize-winning When I Lived in Modern Times (2000). The result is an acute and haunting picture of twentieth-century history, centred on the big themes of class, race and identity but always precisely human in its focus. Intelligent, unsettling, unafraid to make her characters complicated, sexy, and even unlikeable, Linda Grant is an original voice you'll want to return to.

Zadie Smith, Jane Rogers  RV