Louisa Young is a British novelist,[1] songwriter, short-story writer, biographer and journalist, whose work has appeared in 32 languages. By 2023 she had published seven novels under her own name and five with her daughter, the actor Isabel Adomakoh Young, under the pen name Zizou Corder. Her eleventh novel, Devotion, appeared in June 2016.[2][3][4] She has also written three non-fiction books, The Book of the Heart (Flamingo, 2000), A Great Task of Happiness: The Life of Kathleen Scott (Macmillan, 1995; Lulu, 2012) and her memoir, You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol (Borough Press, 2018), an account of her relationship with the composer Robert Lockhart and of his alcoholism. Her most recent novel, Twelve Months and a Day, was published in June 2022 (Borough Press) in the UK, and in the US in January 2023 (Putnam).
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Young worked as a sub-editor, then as a freelance columnist and feature writer on national publications, including The Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Daily Express, Marie Claire, Tatler, Bike and Motorcycle International. She also worked at various stages as a despatch rider, a busker (double bass and vocals), a waitress, a kitchen-hand and a shop assistant.[5]
Her first book, A Great Task of Happiness (2012), was a biography of her grandmother Kathleen Scott, widow of Robert Falcon Scott, British Antarctic explorer, published by Macmillan Publishers in 1995.[6] Then came three novels set in London and Egypt: Baby Love, Desiring Cairo and Tree of Pearls (Flamingo). Baby Love was listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction.[2] These were followed in 2002 by The Book of the Heart, a cultural history of the heart as it is seen through art, religion, love and anatomy. In 2007 she was a curatorial advisor for the Wellcome Foundation exhibition The Heart, which was inspired by her book.[7]
She co-authored five books for children with her daughter, the actor Isabel Adomakoh Young: Lionboy,[3]Lionboy: The Chase,[1]Lionboy: The Truth,[1]Lee Raven, Boy Thief, and Halo. The Lionboy trilogy was translated into 36 languages, and they were among the first UK children's novels to have a mixed-race hero of colour. Halo, set in ancient Greece, was shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2010, and nominated for the Carnegie Medal in 2011.[8][5] The film rights to Lionboy have been sold three times, including twice to Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks.[1] A stage production by Complicité was directed by Annabel Arden, adapted by Marcelo Dos Santos with Arden, Young and the company, and starred Adetomiwa Edun. It opened in 2013 at the Bristol Old Vic and toured the UK to favourable reviews. It was reprised at the Tricycle Theatre, London, the New Victory Theatre, New York, and in Hong Kong and South Korea in 2014/2015.[9]
She has contributed to various anthologies, including I Am Heathcliff (ed. Kate Mosse), Underground; Tales for London (ed. Ann Bissell), A Love Letter to Europe (Coronet) and Of The Flesh (ed. Suzie Dorée).
Young's memoir You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol (Borough Press, 2018), covers her relationship with Robert Lockhart and difficult issues of addiction, talent, love, class and death.
Her novel "Twelve Months and a Day" was published in the UK by Borough Press in June 2022, and by Putnam in the US in January 2023, when it was People Magazine's Book of the Week
Young's music project "Birds of Britain" is a collaboration with multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer Alex Mackenzie. The debut album You Left Early (June 2018) is a collection of songs written by Young about the death of her fiancé.
Works
Fiction
Egypt trilogy
Baby Love (London: Flamingo, 1997; Borough Press, 2015)
^ abFalconer, Rachel (2008). The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children's Fiction and Its Adult Readership. Routledge. p. 37. ISBN978-0415978880.
^Perrin, Raymond (2007). Littérature de jeunesse et presse des jeunes au début du XXIe siècle: Esquisse d'un état des lieux, enjeux et perspectives (in French). L'Harmattan. p. 302. ISBN978-2296040670.
