Sarah Dunant

Early life Dunant was born in 1950 and raised in London. She is the daughter of David Dunant, a former Welsh airline steward who later became a manager at British Airways, before travelling again, this time overland through North, Central and South America, a trip that became research material for her first solo novel Snow Storms in a Hot Climate (1988), a thriller about the early cocaine trade in Colombia.

She went on to work extensively in radio and television, most notably as a presenter of BBC2's late-night live arts programme The Late Show in the 1990s and more recently delivering a series of five original essays on Isabella d'Este and the art of writing historical fiction, entitled Unearthing the Past.

Writing Dunant started writing in her late twenties, first with a friend, with whom she produced two political thrillers and a five-part BBC1 drama series – Thin Air, starring Kate Hardie, Nicky Henson and Clive Merrison, broadcast in 1988 – before going solo with her thriller Snow Storms in a Hot Climate.

Her subsequent novels have explored two genres: contemporary thrillers and historical fiction. What unites the two is her decision to use avowedly popular forms, characterised by compelling storytelling, as a way to explore accurate history and serious subject matter to reach a large audience. This has included (though not exclusively) a passionate commitment to feminism and the role of women inside history.

In the 1990s, she wrote a trilogy around a British female private eye called Hannah Wolfe, spotlighting issues such as surrogacy, cosmetic surgery, animal rights, and violence to women. Sexual violence was also at the centre of Transgressions (based on a mysterious series of incidents happening in her house, which tackled what might happen if a woman woke to an intruder in her house and lived to tell the tale. The resulting furore over the actions of the heroine "caused the book to become a cause celebre which triggered a debate about rape and popular culture".

In 2000, an extended visit to Florence, Italy, changed Dunant's working life. In what she acknowledged was something of a midlife crisis, allowed Dunant to devote herself full-time to writing and research, concentrating on the most current work being done in Renaissance studies, most particularly concerning the lives of women. The novel Sacred Hearts, a story of nuns in an enclosed convent in 16th-century Ferrara, led to collaboration with the early music group Musica Secreta: a theatrical adaptation using the music of the period and with a choir, performed in churches and at early music festivals around Britain.

Since then, she has worked on the history of the Borgia family, seeking to separate the colourful historical truth from the smear and gossip that built up during their lives, and in history after their deaths.

She is an accredited lecturer for NADFAS, the UK arts charity that promotes education and appreciation of fine arts.

In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from Oxford Brookes University, where she is a guest lecturer on the Creative writing M.A. course.

Dunant was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.

Views In her journalism and public speaking, Dunant is among other things, a feminist, and an advocate for legalisation of marijuana. A Catholic by birth, she has also written about the role and importance of religion in history and the need for Catholicism to reform itself.

Hannah Wolfe Birth Marks, 1992. New York: Doubleday. Fatlands, 1993. New York: Penzler Books. Under My Skin, 1995. New York: Scribner Book Co.

Standalone Snow Storms in a Hot Climate, 1988. New York: Random House. Transgressions, 1997. New York: HarperCollins. Mapping the Edge, 1999. New York: Random House.

Historical novels of the Italian Renaissance The Borgias Blood and Beauty, 2013. London: Virago Press. In the Name of the Family, 2017. London: Virago Press.

Standalone The Birth of Venus, 2003. New York: Random House. In the Company of the Courtesan, 2006. London: Virago Press. Sacred Hearts, 2009. New York: Random House. The Marchesa 2025. Whitefox, an illustrated novel on the life, letters and times of Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua

Non-Fiction The War of the Words: The Political Correctness Debate, 1995. London: Virago Press. The Age of Anxiety (with Roy Porter), 1996. London: Virago Press. 2010: Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, shortlist, Sacred Hearts