Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Pandora Press and received a commission to write a biography of the artist

Gluck Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period (music), classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the ...

. Her life of Gluck was her only book in which she used a birth-to-death approach until her life of

Edith Cavell Edith Louisa Cavell ( ; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Be ...

(2010). "We don't live our lives or read in a linear fashion. Also, the internet has so much information that it rather absolves the biographer from being a storehouse of knowledge." Souhami became a full-time writer, publishing biographies which mostly explore the most influential and intriguing of 20th century lesbian (and gay) lives. She followed ''Gluck'' (1988), with ''Gertrude and Alice'' (1991), an account of the relationship between

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

and Alice B. Toklas which lasted from their first meeting to Stein's death in 1946, ''Greta and Cecil'' (1994) examining the romantic relationship between

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...

and

Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theat ...

, and ''Mrs Keppel and her daughter'' (1996), a dual biography of

Alice Keppel Alice Frederica Keppel (''née'' Edmonstone; 29 April 1868 – 11 September 1947) was an aristocrat, british society hostess and a long-time mistress of King Edward VII. Keppel grew up at Duntreath Castle, the family seat of the Edmonstone baro ...

, a long-time mistress of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

, and her daughter,

Violet Trefusis Violet Trefusis (''née'' Keppel; 6 June 1894 – 29 February 1972) was an English socialite and author. She is chiefly remembered for her lengthy affair with the writer Vita Sackville-West that both women continued after their respective marria ...

. ''The Trials of Radclyffe Hall'' (1998), the biography of Marguerite

Radclyffe Hall Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English poet and author, best known for the novel ''The Well of Loneliness'', a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature. In adulthood, Hall often went by the name Jo ...

, won the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

for Biography in 2000 and was shortlisted for the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Unit ...

. In 2001, she departed from her usual genre to publish ''Selkirk's Island'', an account of

Alexander Selkirk Alexander Selkirk (167613 December 1721) was a Scottish privateer and Royal Navy officer who spent four years and four months as a castaway (1704–1709) after being marooned by his captain, initially at his request, on an uninhabited island i ...

's years as a castaway on Isla Más a Tierra (now better known as

Robinson Crusoe Island Robinson Crusoe Island ( es, Isla Róbinson Crusoe, ), formerly known as Más a Tierra (), is the second largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, situated 670 km (362 nmi; 416 mi) west of San Antonio, Chile, in the South Pacific Oc ...

) in the Juan Fernández archipelago. Booksellers and librarians had been puzzling whether to classify the book as fact, fiction, faction, fable or fantasy when it won the 2001 Whitbread Biography Award. Returning to lesbian biography, ''Wild Girls'' (2004) is another dual biography, this time of the American couple

Romaine Brooks Romaine Brooks (born Beatrice Romaine Goddard; May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970) was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portrait painting, portraiture and used a subdued tonal Palette (painting), palette ...

and

Natalie Barney Natalie Clifford Barney (October 31, 1876 – February 2, 1972) was an American writer who hosted a literary salon at her home in Paris that brought together French and international writers. She influenced other authors through her salon and al ...

, part of the artistic expat community in Paris between the wars. Never a conventional biographer, Souhami places at the start of each chapter a short passage in italics where "she appears to be narrating some of her personal lesbian experiences - waiting in a bar for a blind date, a secret affair with a woman Dean, furtive love-making with a girl on the deck of a Greek ferry at night." In 2007 Souhami returned to writing about islands with ''Coconut Chaos'', set on and ''en route'' to

Pitcairn Island Pitcairn Island is the only inhabited island of the Pitcairn Islands, of which many inhabitants are descendants of mutineers of HMS ''Bounty''. Geography The island is of volcanic origin, with a rugged cliff coastline. Unlike many other ...

''.'' Two stories are intertwined: an investigation into the lives of the HMS ''Bounty'' mutineers and their descendants, and a memoir of her journey to the mid-Pacific rock on a freighter with a woman known only as "Lady Myre". She visited at the time of the 2004 Pitcairn Islands sexual assault trial, and although she attempted to travel incognito, the

Pitcairn Islanders Pitcairn Islanders, also referred to as Pitkerners and Pitcairnese, are the inhabitants or citizens of the Pitcairn Islands. The Pitcairn Islands are a British Overseas Territory, mainly inhabited by Euronesians of British and Tahitian descent. ...

discovered that she was a writer and asked her to leave. This book was dramatised for BBC radio. ''Edith Cavell'' (2010) is a straightforward biography of the nurse who was executed for her role in the smuggling of allied soldiers out of Belgium during the First World War. ''Murder at Wrotham Hill'' (2012) is an account of the 1946 murder of Dagmar Petrzywalski and the subsequent investigation and prosecution of the crime, near a quiet village in Kent. ''Gwendolen'' (2014) is a re-telling of

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wro ...

's novel ''

Daniel Deronda ''Daniel Deronda'' is a novel written by Mary Ann Evans under the pen name of George Eliot, first published in eight parts (books) February to September 1876. It was the last novel she completed and the only one set in the Victorian society ...

''. Souhami won the 2021 Polari Prize for ''No

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Without Lesbians.'' "I started writing about lesbians 25 years ago in the hope of contributing to breaking the history of silence. Acceptance can't happen without openness, and I believe we should all try to speak out in our own way. If you're silent and invisible you're no trouble to anyone. You're so buried you're assumed not to be there. So, historically, we have to dig deep to shed light on 'these practices', rid them of insult, turn the wrongdoing around, name and shame the abusers." (Souhami quoted by Emily Reynolds)

Works

Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Television writing

* ''The Weekend'' (1976) dir John Bruce production BBC * ''

Jupiter Moon ''Jupiter Moon'' is a science fiction soap opera television series first broadcast by British Satellite Broadcasting's Galaxy channel in 1990. 150 episodes were commissioned and made, but only the first 108 were broadcast before the closure of ...

'' (1990)

References

External links

Official website
*
Costa Book Awards past winners
{{DEFAULTSORT:Souhami, Diana English biographers Living people English lesbian writers English women non-fiction writers 1940 births Women biographers 20th-century biographers 20th-century English writers 20th-century English women writers 21st-century biographers 21st-century English writers 21st-century English women writers People educated at the City of London School for Girls 21st-century LGBT people

Biography

Works

Books

Television writing

References

Further reading

External links