Susan Cooper
About Author
Susan Cooper was born in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, later moving to North Wales. Her passion for literature began at an early age and she has been writing ever since she can remember.
Susan read English at Oxford University and very soon into her studies became the first woman to edit the University paper, Cherwell. After graduating with an MA in English, she worked at The Sunday Times for 7 years for Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.
It was during this time that Susan began writing the first of her Dark is Rising sequence, Over Sea, Under Stone.
At the age of 27 she moved to the USA to live with her American husband.
The Dark is Rising Sequence of fantasy novels came about partly as a result of feeling home sick for a number of years. Over the next six years, Susan wrote the next four books, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.
It is this sequence that has become synonymous with the name of Susan Cooper and has won Susan several awards, including the Newbery Medal in the USA and two Carnegie nominations in the UK. She was also nominated for an Emmy and won the first Scottish Arts Council Book Award.
In the 1980s Susan began writing text for a number of picture books, and in 2002 published Frog, a story of kindness, courage and friendship.
In 1993 Susan returned to fiction with The Boggart which continued the theme of myth and legend in a new and exciting way, and followed with The Boggart and the Monster in 1997.
Her novel The King of Shadows about the young bard Shakespeare was shortlisted for both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize.
Susan's latest novel Victory, published in March 2006, is a swashbuckling and moving story which follows the tale of two children across an ocean two hundred years apart. One is Sam Robbins, a powder monkey aboard H.M.S. Victory, the ship in which Lord Nelson will die a hero's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The other is Molly Jennings, a present-day English girl transplanted from London to America, fighting a battle of her own against loss and loneliness. The moving climax of the book shows two lives joined forever by the touch of Nelson, one of the greatest sailors of all time.
'An amazing story-teller who writes page-turning books'
Jacqueline Wilson
'A writer of great integrity and skill, whose influence and importance in the field of children's fantasy will be felt for a long time'
Philip Pullman
Interview
No review available yet.
