Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Louise Dean is the author of novels and short stories published in the UK and internationally, including Becoming Strangers, This Human Season, The Idea of Love, and The Old Romantic Her first book, the award-winning Becoming Strangers was voted one of the top 5 fiction books of 2004 by The Observer. Louise Dean was born in Hastings and grew up in Kent going to Cranbrook School and Cambridge University where she read History. After working in marketing for Unilever she went into advertising in London, then Hong Kong, and New York. She is mother to three children and lives in Kent.
Louise Dean's website
This bio was last updated on 04/04/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
A lot of first fiction tends to be autobiographical to some extent, but
considering that you wrote Becoming Strangers in your early 30s and the
lead protagonists are two couples in their 50s and 80s, it's reasonably safe to
assume that it's not! Did you have a particular motive for writing it?
After a sadly failed early marriage, I suppose I needed to say "down with love",
and "friendship is good". That"s simplistic though. Away from home, in the US,
and unable, due to the INS, to go home to see my family for some years, my
grandparents died. I loved them dearly and it grieved me to miss their last
years (they had a major hand in raising me, I was their only grandchild). I
brought them back to life in this book. When I started to write seriously, aged
26, a friend said to me "Write what you need". It was good advice.
Reading the dialogue and thoughts of your various characters, it's as if
you've somehow got inside their own skins and are really seeing the world
through their eyes. How do you manage this?
Love. Sorrow. Guilt. A sense of your own stupidity.
You portray the clique of Americans in Becoming Strangers as
particularly shallow and, frankly, not very ...
Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004 he graduated from Oberlin ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
This Human Season
Try:
A Long Way Gone
by Ishmael Beah
William Boyd has received world-wide acclaim for his novels. They are: A Good Man in Africa (1981, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize) An Ice Cream War (1982, shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Becoming Strangers
Try:
Any Human Heart
by William Boyd
We recommend 11 similar authors
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
