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Joanna Barnden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joanna Barnden
Born
Joanna Courtney Gibb

1972
St Andrews, Scotland
Other names
  • Joanna Courtney
  • Anna Stuart
Alma mater
Years active2013–present
SpouseStuart Barnden

Joanna Barnden (née Gibb; born 1972)[1][2][3][4][5] is a British author of historical fiction who writes as Anna Stuart for her World War II novels and Joanna Courtney for novels set in other periods (Courtney is Barnden's middle name).[4]

Biography

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Born Joanna Gibb in St Andrews, Scotland,[6] Barnden attended Loughborough High School from Year 9.[1][3] She studied English literature at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.[7][8]

After graduating, Barnden worked as a factory planner and started a family, initially writing only in her spare time.[2][8] Her first short story was published in The People's Friend around 2001 and she went on to publish more than two hundred short stories in women's magazines before turning her attention to long-form fiction.[2] For a time around 2013 and 2014 she was a creative writing tutor at the Open University.[9][6]

Her work has been translated into several languages, including French, German, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish, and she has enjoyed considerable success beyond the anglosphere. For example, the French translation of The Midwife of Auschwitz (La Sage-femme d'Auschwitz) had sold over half a million copies by the end of 2024.[10]

Barnden lives in Kirk Langley with her husband Stuart.[4] They have two children.[8]

Publications

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As Joanna Barnden

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  • 2013 : Running Against the Tide (Robert Hale) — London's docklands in the early nineteenth century

As Joanna Courtney

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Series: Queens of the Conquest

Series: Shakespeare's Queens

Other works

  • 2015 : The Christmas Court, novella (Pan Books) — a seasonal tale set in the Queens of the Conquest universe
  • 2023 : Cleopatra and Julius (Piatkus) — the Egyptian queen and the Roman general

As Anna Stuart

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Series: World War II Remembered
Three novels in which a young woman of today connects with a woman who lived through the Second World War.

  • 2021 : The Berlin Zookeeper (Bookouture)
  • 2021 : The Secret Diary (Bookouture)
  • 2021 : A Letter from Pearl Harbor (Bookouture)

Series: Women of War

  • 2022 : The Midwife of Auschwitz (Bookouture) — freely inspired by the experience of Stanisława Leszczyńska
  • 2023 : The Midwife of Berlin (Bookouture) — sequel focused on the fictitious assistant Ester Pasternak
  • 2024 : The War Orphan (Bookouture)
  • 2024 : The Resistance Sisters (Bookouture)
  • 2024 : The Secret Message (Bookouture)

Series: The Bletchley Park Girls

  • 2022 : The Bletchley Girls (Bookouture)
  • 2023 : Code Name Elodie (Bookouture)

Contemporary fiction

  • 2019 : Bonnie and Stan (Trapeze)
  • 2020 : Four Minutes to Save a Life (Trapeze)

References

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  1. ^ a b "Memories of LHS in the 80s" (PDF). Cloisters. October 2015. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  2. ^ a b c "Meet Joanna Barnden". The People's Friend. 22 December 2015. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  3. ^ a b "Joanna Barnden, LHS, 1990". The Loughborough Schools Foundation. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  4. ^ a b c Crawford, Colston (31 May 2019). "Writing was a childhood dream and now Joanna just can't stop". Derbyshire Live. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  5. ^ "Statutory registers: Births", Scotland's People. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  6. ^ a b Joanna Barnden, Running Against the Tide (London: Robert Hale, 2013), note on the author.
  7. ^ "Double celebrations for SSBC at biggest ever Alumni Dinner" (PDF). Pheon. 2017. p. 15. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  8. ^ a b c "Anna Stuart". Bookouture. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  9. ^ Spencer, Clare (20 May 2014). "Joanna Barnden's novel trilogy to be published by Pan Macmillan". Open University. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  10. ^ Solym, Clément (23 December 2024). "Cette romancière britannique dépasse les ventes de Musso et Dicker". Actualitté. Retrieved 27 December 2024. Grand format (City Editions) and pocket format (J'ai lu) combined.
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