Joanne Harris Biography

Joanne Harris was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire on July 3, 1964, her mother is French, her father English.  She was educated at Wakefield Girls' High and Barnsley Sixth Form College, and then read Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge.  After a number of heroic career failures (rock musician, herbalist, accountant) she succumbed to genetic pressure and became a French teacher for 12 years at a boys' grammar school in Leeds, and later taught a French Literature course at Sheffield University. 

Her first novel, The Evil Seed, was published in 1989, although she strongly advises against reading it.  Since then she has written Sleep, Pale Sister (1993); Chocolat (1999); Blackberry Wine (2000); Five Quarters of the Orange (2001), Coastliners (2002), Holy Fools (2003), Jigs and Reels (2004), Gentlemen and Players (2005), The French Market (2005), The Lollipop Shoes (2007), Runemarks (2008), Blueeyedboy (2010), and a cookbook-memoir My French Kitchen (2002).  Her books have been published in 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. 

She was awarded an honorary D.Lit (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Huddersfield in 2003 and also by the University of Sheffield in 2004.

According to her website her hobbies include "mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system, although she also enjoys obfuscation, sleaze, rebellion, witchcraft, armed robbery, tea and biscuits. She is not above bribery and would not necessarily refuse an offer involving exotic travel, champagne or yellow diamonds from Graff. She plays bass guitar in a band first formed when she was 16, is currently studying Old Norse and lives with her husband Kevin and her daughter Anouchka, about 15 miles from the place she was born."

Joanne Harris's website

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