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Siobhan Dowd
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"A Swift Pure Cry" is a disarming, very engaging first novel about a resourceful Irish teenager who steps in to take care of her younger siblings after the death of their mother. It is moving, witty, sharply observed and handily unsentimental. Because of the age of its central character, I suppose, the book has been marketed to "young adults." But like the best of these, it will speak clearly to any reader.
Biography
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(From the author's website, www.siobhandowd.co.uk)
Siobhan Dowd was born to Irish parents and brought up in London. She spent much of her youth visiting the family cottage in Aglish, County Waterford and later the family home in Wicklow Town. Today she lives in Oxford but visits friends and relatives in Ireland as often as she can.
She attended a Catholic grammar school in south London and then gained a degree in Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. After a short stint in publishing, she joined the writer's organisation PEN, initially as a researcher for its Writers in Prison Committee.
She went on to be Program Director of PEN American Center's Freedom-to-Write Committee in New York City. Her work here included founding and leading the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and travelling to Indonesia and Guatemala to investigate local human rights conditions for writers. During her seven-year spell in New York, Siobhan was named one of the "top 100 Irish-Americans" by Irish-America Magazine and AerLingus, for her global anti-censorship work.
On her return to the UK, Siobhan co-founded English PEN's readers and writers programme, which takes authors into schools in socially deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender's institutions and community projects.
During 2004, Siobhan served as Deputy Commissioner for Children's Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children's lives conform with UN protocols.
Siobhan has an MA with Distinction in Gender and Ethnic Studies at Greenwich University, has authored short stories, columns and articles, and edited two anthologies.
A Swift Pure Cry is Siobhan's first novel, and was published by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in March 2006. It was long-listed for the Guardian Children's Book Prize and short-listed for the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Prize and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. It is currently short-listed for the 2007 Carnegie Award, the Children's Books Ireland/Bisto Book of the Year Award and the Sheffield Children's Book Awards. It has also been short-listed for the Jungenliteraturpreis in Germany, where it was published in 2006. The American edition appeared on April 10th, 2007. and the French edition on April 13th, 2007.
Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery (a story for 9- to 12-year-olds), will be published by David Fickling Books on 7 June 2007 and her third novel, Solace of the Road (a story for teenagers), will appear in January 2008. She is currently working on her fourth novel.
pageminder May 9th, 2007 08:23 AM PST