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Biography |
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Celia Brayfield is an English writer whose novels have been acclaimed for the wit, narrative mastery and acute social observation with which they address modern themes. She is the author of four non-fiction books and nine novels. The latest novel, Wild Weekend , a comedy set in the English countryside and loosely based on Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, was published by Time Warner Books in 2004, as was her memoir of a year spent in the remote Bearn region of France, Deep France. Among her previous novels, two Mister Fabulous And Friends, and Getting Home, concern the characters who live in the fictional upmarket suburb of Westwick, and are in development as a TV series. Heartswap, a romantic comedy about two London girls who set their fiances a fidelity test, was optioned by Paramount for Nicole Kidman and Harvest, a black comedy about a serial adulterer, his lovers and and his family, was optioned by Ian McShane and Chrysalis Films. A regular contributor to The Times and a frequent broadcaster, Celia developed an interest in popular culture as a television and film critic with The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, and London's Evening Standard. In the voluntary sector, she is a trustee of One Parent Families and has served on the management committee of The Society of Authors. Celia was born in the north London suburb of Wembley Park, in what is now the borough of Brent. Her father was a dentist and her mother, who first went out to work as a housemaid when she was fourteen years old, gave up work after her marriage and became a full-time wife and mother. Celia was the eldest of their two daughters. At the local junior school, where the headmaster read Dickens, Longfellow, Robert Louis Stevenson and PG Wodehouse with his English class, Celia decided that she wanted to be a writer. She went on to St Paul's Girls' School, London's leading academic girls' school. In the next five years she studied and acted in at least twelve of Shakespeare's plays and the work of many other writers. After she was forced to focus on sciences, because her father opposed her ambition, she continued to read French, Russian and modern English and American writers, borrowing from the local library. After studying French language and civilusation at Grenoble University, Celia became a secretary and left home at the age of 19, moving into journalism via the typing pool at The Times. Celia has a wonderful daughter, Chloe, at present working at a leading London theatrcial agency. They live mostly in West London. Literary agent: Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown Ltd, |
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