Shirley Conran OBE (née Pearce; born 21 September 1932) is a British novelist and journalist.

Early life

Born in 1932, she attended St. Paul's Girls School, London, and then a finishing school in Switzerland which later provided some inspiration for the fictional school ''L'Hirondelle' in her novel ''Lace''. Her father was an alcoholic and her home life was difficult, causing Conran to leave home at 19. She worked as an artist's model, and then trained as a sculptor at Southern College of Art, Portsmouth (now part of Southampton University), and as a painter at Chelsea Polytechnic (now part of University of the Arts, London).

Career

Following the breakdown of her first marriage, Conran turned to writing in order to support her children. She wrote for the

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

and in 1968 became women's editor and launched Femail, the newspaper's first dedicated women's section. Conran later became women's editor for

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

magazine, and wrote columns for '' Vanity Fair.'' Her influential 1975

non-fiction book Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

''Superwoman'' coined the phrase that became a feminist slogan, “life’s too short to stuff a mushroom”. Her first novel ''Lace'' was published in 1982 by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

and was a huge bestseller, spending 13 weeks on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list, reaching as high as No. 6. It became known as a 'bonkbuster' for its many explicit and often bizarre sex scenes. It was adapted into a 1980s US miniseries starring

Phoebe Cates Phoebe Belle Cates Kline (born July 16, 1963) is an American former actress, known primarily for her roles in films such as ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' (1982), ''Gremlins'' (1984) and ''Drop Dead Fred'' (1991). Early life Cates was born ...

. It contains the infamous line, "Which one of you bitches is my mother?"

Personal life

Conran was married to Sir

Terence Conran Sir Terence Orby Conran (4 October 1931 – 12 September 2020) was an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. He founded the Design Museum in Shad Thames, London in 1989 The British designer Thomas Heatherwick said that Conran " ...

from 1955 to 1962; they are the parents of two sons: Sebastian Orby Conran and Jasper Alexander Thirlby Conran, both designers. In 2009, she wrote that she suffered from

chronic fatigue syndrome Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...

. Conran has homes in France and London, and lived in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

for several years. She founded the educational non-profit Maths Action.

Works

Fiction

*''Lace'' (

, 1982) *''Lace 2'' (1985) *''The Complete Story'' (omnibus, 1986) *''Savages'' (1987, movie rights owned by Warner Brothers but never made) *The Amazing Umbrella Shop (1990 - children's book co-authored with her children Jasper and Sebastian Conran) *''Crimson'' (1992) *''Tiger Eyes'' (1994) *''The Revenge'' (aka ''Revenge of Mimi Quinn'', 1998)

Non-fiction

*''Superwoman'' (1975), see

Superwoman (sociology) In sociology, a superwoman (also sometimes called supermom) is a Western woman who works hard to manage multiple roles of a worker, a homemaker, a volunteer, a student, or other such time-intensive occupations. The notion of "superwoman" diff ...

*''Superwoman 2'' (1977) *''Futurewoman: How to Survive Life After Thirty'' (1979) *''Superwoman in Action'' (1979) *''The Magic Garden'' (1983) *''Down with Superwoman: For Everyone Who Hates Housework'' (1990) *''Money Stuff'' (2014)

Other

*''The Magic Garden'' was adapted as a computer program and published by

Acornsoft Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and util ...

for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

as ''Shirley Conran's Magic Garden''.

References

External links

Official website

Sarah Hughes: 'What trashy novels taught me about life', ''Observer Books'', 31 January 2021
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conran, Shirley 1932 births Living people

Shirley Shirley may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë * ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film * ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film * ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...

Alumni of the University of Portsmouth English expatriates in Monaco English novelists English non-fiction writers English journalists English women novelists English women non-fiction writers English women journalists 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English writers 20th-century British novelists