Nina Bawden
Nina Bawden
Nina Bawden CBE FRSL JPwas an English novelist and children's writer. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 and the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010. She is one of a select group to have both served as a Booker judge and made the shortlist as an author...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth19 January 1925
running sex teenager
But I don't write about sex for today's teenagers. Or Doc Martens boots either. I'm more interested in exploring how exactly the world is run, which doesn't really change that much from one generation to another.
country hate living-on
I would hate to live in the country, unless I was living on a farm.
mother made-up-stories serial-killer
I grew up on a suburban street with lace curtains and dull neighbours, so I made up stories to tell my friend, in which they became serial killers and burglars. She told her mother, who then told mine.
differences interesting feelings
I've never found it made the slightest difference being a woman - though there is a sort of feeling that as you get older you're not so interesting.
husband children thinking
There are many times when I think I would have rather died with my husband. It would have been pleasanter, simpler. But it would have been worse for the children and the family in general.
children taken mean
Ten thousand pounds is the legal value of a negligently taken life, of a child or a parent. A cold and somewhat mean-spirited calculation: you would do better if you slipped on a paving-stone and broke a front tooth.
thinking people important
People who don't read seem to me mysterious. I don't know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important part of our education.
people care remember
People's lives are in the care of the railways when they get on a train. The railways should remember that.
writing age life-is
One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.
writing thieves tools
All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade.
liars people tragedy
All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story... They are terrible people.
survivor victim angry
I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.
children book writing
I like writing for children. It seems to me that most people underestimate their understanding and the strength of their feelings and in my books for them I try to put this right.
jobs war oxford
I wanted to be a war reporter - scrabbling around, exposing things. I didn't want to go to university, I wanted to get a job, but Auntie Beryl said I should go to Oxford.