Lavinia Greenlaw

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Lavinia Greenlaw
Greenlaw in 2019
Greenlaw in 2019
BornLavinia Elaine Greenlaw
(1962-07-30) 30 July 1962 (age 61)
London, England
EducationKingston Polytechnic; London College of Printing; Courtauld Institute
GenresPoetry; novel
Notable worksMary George of Allnorthover; Audio Obscura
Notable awardsForward Prize, 1997;
Prix du Premier Roman, 2001;
Ted Hughes Award, 2011
Website
laviniagreenlaw.co.uk

Lavinia Elaine Greenlaw (born 30 July 1962)[1] is an English poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde.[2] Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.[3]

Biography[edit]

Greenlaw in 2019

Lavinia Greenlaw was born in London into a medical and scientific family,[4] and has a sister and two brothers.[5] When she was aged 11, the family moved from London to an Essex village, where they lived for seven years.[6][5] This period Greenlaw has described as "an interim time", with "memories of time being arrested, nothing much happening."

Greenlaw went on to read modern arts at Kingston Polytechnic. She then studied at the London College of Printing and gained an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute. She was employed as an editor at Imperial College of Science and Technology (1985–1986) and subsequently worked with the publishers Allison & Busby (1986–1987),[7][8][9] and then with Earthscan (1988–1990), again alongside Margaret Busby.[10][11] Greenlaw also worked as an arts administrator for Southbank Centre (1990–1991) and the London Arts Board (1991–1994).

Greenlaw's career as a freelance artist, critic and broadcaster began in 1994.[12] She became the first artist-in-residence at the Science Museum (1994–1995),[13] and has since held residences at the Royal Festival Hall, at a London solicitors' firm (1997–1998),[7][11] and at the Royal Society of Medicine (2004).[14] In 2013, she won an Engagement Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust.[15] Her sound work Audio Obscura was commissioned in 2011 by Artangel and Manchester International Festival,[16] and heard at Manchester Piccadilly station in July 2011 and London St Pancras station in September and October 2011. It won the 2011 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, the judges calling it "groundbreaking".[17][18]

Greenlaw taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She served as professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia from 2007 to 2013,[13] and as a visiting professor at King's College London (2015–2016) and Freie Universität Berlin (2017). She currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.[16][3]

After judging the 2010 Manchester Poetry Prize, Greenlaw chaired in 2014 the judging panel for the inaugural Folio Prize.[19][20] She is a Council member of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Chair of the Poetry Society.[13]

In October 2023, Greenlaw was announced as Poetry Editor of Faber and Faber, in succession to Matthew Hollis.[21]

Writing[edit]

Primarily a poet, Greenlaw was the author of two pamphlets, The Cost of Getting Lost in Space (1991) and Love from a Foreign City (1992), before her first full-length collection, Night Photograph, was published in 1993 by Faber. Her work was included in the 1997 Bloodaxe Books anthology Making for Planet Alice: New Women Poets, edited by Maura Dooley, and the same year Greenlaw's second collection, A World Where News Travelled Slowly, was published.[22]

She went on to write novels, short stories, plays and non-fiction. She has also made radio documentaries. Her work for music includes the libretto for the opera Peter Pan composed by Richard Ayres (Staatsoper Stuttgart/Komische Oper Berlin/Welsh National Opera and Royal Opera House, 2015).[16][23][24] Publications for which she has written include the London Review of Books, The Guardian and The New Yorker, and in 2019 she was a contributor to A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West (Gingko Library).[25][26]

Her work draws on her interest in science and scientific enquiry (there were physicists in her family) and covers themes of displacement, loss and belonging.[27][28] Critics have seen her poetry as remarkable for its precision; her best contain a complexity and elusiveness that lead them to "appreciate with each re-reading".[29]

Her biography notes: "She has written and adapted several dramas for radio, including Virginia Woolf's Night and Day, Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, and a series on malaria called Five Fever Tales. She has made documentaries about Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop and several programmes about light, including trips to the Arctic midsummer and midwinter, the Baltic, the darkest place in England, light in London, and the solstices and equinoxes."[16]

Greenlaw is also a memoirist. Kirkus Reviews summed up her 2007 coming-of-age book, The Importance of Music to Girls, by saying: "The taut, lyric thrum of Greenlaw's prose reflects her poet's skill....Well-written, bewitching and subtly dazzling."[30] Some Answers Without Questions (2021), part memoir, part manifesto, was described by Hephzibah Anderson in The Observer as "a delight: approachable, rigorous and omnivorous in its frame of reference".[31]

Personal life[edit]

Greenlaw has lived in London for most of her life.[12][16][32] She has a daughter.[33]

Awards and recognition[edit]

Lavinia Greenlaw received an Eric Gregory Award in 1990, an Arts Council Writers' Award in 1995, a Cholmondeley Award, and a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship.[16] In 1994 she was chosen as one of 20 New Generation Poets, by a jury composed of Melvyn Bragg, Margaret Busby, Vicki Feather, Michael Longley, John Osborne and James Wood.[34] In 1997, Greenlaw won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for "A World Where News Travelled Slowly", the title poem from her second main collection.[35]

For her 2001 first novel, Mary George of Allnorthover, Greenlaw won the French Prix du Premier Roman.[36] She has been shortlisted for a number of literary awards, including the Whitbread Book Award (now the Costa Book Awards) and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her sound work Audio Obscura won the 2011 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.[17] Her short story "We Are Watching Something Terrible Happening" was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013.[37]

Selected works[edit]

  • The Cost of Getting Lost in Space (poetry), Turret Books, 1991, ISBN 978-0854690916
  • Love from a Foreign City (poetry), Slow Dancer Press, 1992, ISBN 978-1-871033-18-2
  • Night Photograph (poetry; shortlisted for Whitbread and Forward Poetry Prizes), Faber & Faber, 1993, ISBN 978-0-571-16894-1
  • A World Where News Travelled Slowly (poetry), Faber, 1997, ISBN 978-0571326358
  • Mary George of Allnorthover (novel; Prix du Premier Roman Etranger), Flamingo, 9 July 2001, ISBN 978-0-618-09523-0
  • Minsk (poetry; shortlisted for T. S. Eliot, Forward and Whitbread Poetry Prizes), Faber, 2003, ISBN 978-0-571-22271-1
  • Thoughts of a Night Sea (photographs by Garry Fabian Miller), Merrell, 2003, ISBN 978-1858942223
  • An Irresponsible Age (novel), Fourth Estate, 2006, ISBN 978-0-00-715629-0
  • The Importance of Music to Girls (memoir), Faber, 2007, ISBN 978-0-375-17454-4
  • The Casual Perfect (poetry), Faber, 2011, ISBN 978-0-571-27816-9
  • Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland (non-fiction), Notting Hill Editions, 2011, ISBN 978-190790318-2.
  • A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde (poetry), Faber, 2014, ISBN 978-0-571-28454-2
  • In the City of Love's Sleep (novel), Faber, 2018, ISBN 9780571337620
  • The Built Moment (poetry), Faber, 2019, ISBN 978-0-571-347100
  • Some Answers Without Questions (memoir/manifesto), Faber, 2021, ISBN 9780571368655

Translations[edit]

Television[edit]

Greenlaw appeared as a "talking head" on the BBC documentaries Top of the Pops: The Story of 1976[38] (2011) and The Joy of the Single[39] (2012).

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Ms Lavinia Greenlaw", Debrett's.
  2. ^ "A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde (Costa Poetry Award Shortlist)", Dundee University Review of the Arts. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
  3. ^ a b "Lavinia Greenlaw appointed Chair of Creative Writing", Royal Holloway, University of London, 31 May 2017.
  4. ^ "Poet Lavinia Greenlaw To Read at Library of Congress December 23, 1997". The Library of Congress. 23 December 1997. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  5. ^ a b Marianne Brace, "Lavinia Greenlaw: Testament of middle youth", The Independent, 6 January 2006.
  6. ^ Adam Newey, "Poetry – Essex Girl", New Statesman, 13 October 2003.
  7. ^ a b Biography at The International Literary Quarterly.
  8. ^ "Clive Allison obituary". The Guardian. 3 August 2011.
  9. ^ Mohit K. Ray (ed.), The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2007, pp. 221–222.
  10. ^ Miles Litvinoff, "Acknowledgements", The Earthscan Action Handbook for People and Planet, Earthscan, 1990.
  11. ^ a b "Greenlaw, Lavinia (Elaine)", Encyclopedia.com.
  12. ^ a b "Lavinia Greenlaw Bio". Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  13. ^ a b c "Lavinia Greenlaw", British Council, Literature.
  14. ^ "Off the Map |Lavinia Greenlaw", Haus für Poesie.
  15. ^ "Wellcome Trust awards three new Engagement Fellowships", Wellcome Trust, 3 September 2013.
  16. ^ a b c d e f "Biography", Lavinia Greenlaw website.
  17. ^ a b Flood, Alison, "Lavinia Greenlaw wins Ted Hughes award 2011 for new work in poetry", The Guardian, 30 March 2012.
  18. ^ Kaite O'Reilly: "Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2011: Lavinia Greenlaw", 31 March 2012.
  19. ^ Mark Brown, "Lavinia Greenlaw to chair judging panel for Folio prize", The Guardian, 16 July 2013.
  20. ^ Mark Brown, "Folio Prize announces inaugural shortlist of eight books", The Guardian, 10 February 2014.
  21. ^ "Lavinia Greenlaw Appointed Poetry Editor at Faber". Faber. 13 October 2023.
  22. ^ Kendall, Tim (Summer 1997). "Interview with Lavinia Greenlaw". Poetry Magazines. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
  23. ^ "Lavinia Greenlaw", Royal Opera House.
  24. ^ "Peter Pan Richard Ayres", WNO. Archived 2014/2015.
  25. ^ "A New Divan". Gingko. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  26. ^ "#Riveting Reviews: Rüdiger Görner reviews A NEW DIVAN: A LYRICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST edited by Bill Swainson and Barbara Schwepcke, with forewords by Daniel Barenboim and Mariam C. Said". European Literature Network. 5 January 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  27. ^ "Lavinia Greenlaw – Poetry Archive". Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  28. ^ Allardice, Lisa (19 March 2001). "A girl in my head". New Statesman. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  29. ^ "Books", Lavinia Greenlaw website.
  30. ^ "The Importance of Music to Girls". Kirkus Reviews. 1 March 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  31. ^ Anderson, Hephzibah (1 August 2021). "In brief: Annie Stanley, All at Sea; Some Answers Without Questions; Unexplained Deaths". The Observer.
  32. ^ "Goldsmiths College > Department of English & Comparative Literature". Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  33. ^ Clark, Alex (12 August 2007). "'I was the only punk in the village'". The Observer.
  34. ^ Raphael Costambeys-Kempczynsi, "'The world is round': mystification and the poetry of Lavinia Greenlaw", E-rea, 6.1, 2008.
  35. ^ "Forward Alumni", Forward Arts Foundation.
  36. ^ "Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – film: Lavinia Greenlaw Profile". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
  37. ^ "Front Row's interview with Lavinia Greenlaw", BBC Radio 4, 27 September 2013.
  38. ^ Top of the Pops: The Story of 1976, BBC Four, 1 April 2011.
  39. ^ The Joy of the Single, BBC Four, 26 November 2012.

External links[edit]

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