Renowned Writers – Naomi Alderman

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

Naomi Alderman (Class of 1993) left South Hampstead for Lincoln College, Oxford, where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.  After she left Oxford, she found her way into children’s publishing, and then worked for a law firm, editing their publications. They sent her to the United States and there she began to explore the world of fan fiction, focusing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which led her to study creative writing at the University of East Anglia. She was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University in 2012.

Her literary début came in 2006 with Disobedience, which won her the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers and the 2007 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and was followed by The Lessons (2010), Borrowed Time (2011) and The Liars’ Gospel (2012).

In 2012, Alderman was selected as a protégée by Margaret Atwood as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange. One result of this was her fourth novel, The Power (2016), a dystopian work influenced by and dedicated to Atwood. The Power won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017.