Writer grace mccleen biography

Grace McCleen


Born

Wales, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.gracemccleen.com


Genre

Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism


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Grace McCleen was born in Wales and grew up in a fundamentalist religion where she did not have much contact with non-believers. Her family moved to Ireland when she was ten, where she was schooled at home. When Grace and her family moved back to Britain she went back to school and her English teacher suggested she apply to Oxford.

She studied English Literature at Oxford University and The University of York before becoming a full-time writer and musician. She lives in London. The Land of Decoration is her first novel.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gracem...Grace McCleen was born in Wales and grew up in a fundamentalist religion where she did not have much contact with non-believers. Her family moved to Ireland when she was ten, where she was schooled at home. When Grace and her family moved back to Britain she went back to school and her English teacher suggested she apply to Oxford.

She studied English Liter

Grace McCleen

British novelist

Grace McCleen (born 1981) is a British novelist. She has won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Betty Trask Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.

Life

McCleen was brought up in a fundamentalistChristiansect in Wales and for most of her childhood did not have much contact with outsiders.[1][2][3]

McCleen went to the University of Oxford to read English Literature aged 22.[4] She later completed a MA, also in English Literature, at the University of York.[1][2][5] She experienced opposition from her religious community to her decision to attend university.[6] "It was an enormous step and one I almost didn't take, and one I felt bad about taking for many years afterwards, until I realised I hadn't done anything wrong."[7]

After graduation she experienced a mental breakdown and suffered from tinnitus and Chronic fatigue syndrome.[5] During her illness, she wrote "a long novel. It didn’t work and from that novel came three novels":[

The Land of Decoration

2012 novel by Grace McCleen

The Land of Decoration is the debut novel by British author Grace McCleen published in 2012 by Chatto & Windus. It won the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2012[2] and the Betty Trask Award in 2013.[3] It was chosen along with three American novels by The Sunday Times Literary Editor as one of the four most promising debuts of 2012.[4] It became one of Waterstones 11,[5] an Oprah favourite,[6] has so far been translated into nineteen languages and was selected by the Richard and Judy Book Club.[7] It has been optioned by Life of Pi producer Gil Netter to be adapted by Kelly Marcel.[8]

Plot introduction

The story is about ten-year-old Judith, who lives with her father John in a small town, as members of a fundamentalist sect they warn their neighbours of the approaching armageddon. Motherless and bullied at school Judith seeks escape in her bedroom where she has recreated the town as an elaborate model, which she calls the 'Land of Decoration',

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