Charlotte Mendelson
Encyclopedia
Biography
Her maternal grandparents were, in her words, "Hungarian-speaking-Czech, Ruthenian for about 10 minutes, Carpathian mountain-y, impossible to describe", who left Prague in 1939.She was born in 1972 in west London, in a flat on the Queensway. When she was two, she moved with her parents and her baby sister to a house in a cobbled passage next to St John's College, Oxford, where her father taught public international law.
She took up the French horn because it has a reputation for being the hardest instrument to play.
After the King's School, Canterbury,she studied Ancient and Modern History at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, even though she knows now, with great regret, that what would have suited her best was English literature at somewhere like Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
.
She says she became a lesbian suddenly. "It was boyfriends up to 22 or 23. Not a whiff of lesbianism. Not even a thought. But I'm very all or nothing. It was all that, and now it's all this. There was about a 10-minute cross-over period of uncertainty, but it was really not that bad."
She has two children with the journalist and novelist Joanna Briscoe
Joanna Briscoe
-Early life:Joanna Briscoe was born in London in 1963. Much of her childhood was spent in the southwest of England. At the age of 10 years she moved with her family from Somerset to Jordan Manor, an isolated six-bedroomed thatched Devon long house set within of land in a valley in Dartmoor...
.
Career
She wrote her first short story, ‘Blood Sugar’, at the suggestion of, with the encouragement of, submitting to the insistence of her tutor Craig RaineCraig Raine
Craig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...
. It was published in Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
's New Writing 7 and twice broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
.
Her first novel, Love in Idleness followed in 2001.
She won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom...
in 2003 and the Somerset Maugham Award
Somerset Maugham Award
The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus...
in 2004 for her second novel Daughters of Jerusalem. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2003.
Her third novel, When We Were Bad, was published in May 2007.
She contributes regularly to the TLS
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the Independent on Sunday and the Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
. She is an editor at the publishers Headline Review.
She was placed 60th on the Independent on Sunday Pink List 2007. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2516664.ece
Mendelson was among Waterstones' 25 Authors for the Future - twenty-five writers "predicted to keep us entertained, enthralled and informed over the next 25 years. There were more than 100 nominees from publishers, editors and agents asked to select the emergent British writers of the 21st Century who they believed would go on to produce the most impressive body of work over the next quarter century. The final 25 were selected by a panel at Waterstones She also featured in the Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
list of emerging writers Forty under 40, which commented Hailed as a new star of writing well before her first novel was published, Mendelson has risen above the hype to forge a substantial career...We think Mendelson is ready to join Zadie Smith and David Mitchell in Brit's big league.
Awards and nominations
- John Llewellyn Rhys PrizeJohn Llewellyn Rhys PrizeThe John Llewellyn Rhys Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom...
- Somerset Maugham AwardSomerset Maugham AwardThe Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus...
- Sunday Times
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
(shortlisted)