Renowned Writers – Fay Weldon

Every month, as we celebrate the breadth of our alumnae community, we highlight former pupils who have become published authors.

Fay Weldon (Class of 1949) needs no introduction as a writer. She attended South Hampstead having won a scholarship and went on to study Psychology and Economics at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her first novel, The Fat Woman’s Joke was published in 1967. As her website says:

“She has been writing fiction assiduously for five decades’ since then. She has written 34 novels, numerous TV dramas, several radio plays, 5 full length stage plays, quite a few short ones, five collections of short stories… innumerable articles, demonstrated essential respectability by being given a CBE, is big in Denmark and, at the time of writing, works as a Professor, teaching creative writing at Bath Spa University. She turns up on TV and radio quite a lot, even at her advanced age, presenting herself as a pleasant, practical, well informed person – not the delinquent she once was.”

Fay has won numerous awards over her long career and was nominated for the The Man Booker Prize in 1979 for her novel Praxis. Her book, The Life and Loves of a She Devil, was made into a TV mini-series and film starring Meryl Streep; three decades later, in 2018, she released a follow up to the book, Death of a She Devil. Her most recent book, After the Peace has been recorded as an audio book by Julian Clary.