Claire Armitstead

Claire Armitstead is a British journalist and author. She is Associate Editor (Culture) at The Guardian, where she has worked since 1992.[1] She is also a cultural commentator on literature and the arts, and makes regular appearances on radio and television, as well as leading workshops and chairing literary events in the UK and at international festivals.[2] She has judged literary competitions including the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the PEN Pinter Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Biography

Armitstead was born in south London, England, and spent her early childhood in Northern Nigeria, attending primary school in Kaduna.[3][4]

She worked as a trainee reporter in South Wales, before joining the Hampstead & Highgate Express as a theatre critic and sub-editor, moving from there to the Financial Times and then in 1992 to The Guardian, where she has been Arts Editor, Literary Editor (in which position she was described as "Respected blue-stocking and keen cyclist who keeps the wheels turning on ever more ambitious books pages"),[5] Head of Books and, most recently, Associate Editor (Culture).[3] She presents The Guardian's weekly Books podcast and is a regular speaker at festivals around the world.[6] She has interviewed and been in conversation many notable authors, among them Ayọ̀bami Adebayọ̀,[7] Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Anthony Beevor, Margaret Busby,[8] Kiran Desai, Inua Ellams, Aminatta Forna, Rick Gekoski, Amitav Ghosh, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Hari Kunzru, John Lanchester, Andrea Levy, Eimear McBride, Michael Morpurgo, Andy Mulligan, Maggie O'Farrell, Kevin Powers, Kamila Shamsie, Olga Tokarczuk, Barbara Trapido, Rose Tremain, and Sarah Waters.[9]

Armitstead's essays have been published in New Performance (Macmillan, 1994) and Women: A Cultural Review (Oxford University Press, 1996), and she edited Tales of Two Londons: Stories From a Fractured City (O/R Books, 2018), an anthology that "sets out to mirror London's diversity by ensuring that more than a third of the voices are of those not born in the UK", with contributions including memoir, reportage, history and other genres, from such writers as Memed Aksoy, Duncan Campbell, John Crace, Tom Dyckhoff, Travis Elborough, Inua Ellams, Ben Judah, Sarah Maguire, David McKie, Rowan Moore, Daljit Nagra, Ruth Padel, Michèle Roberts, Jacob Ross, Iain Sinclair, Ali Smith, Jon Snow, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ed Vulliamy, and Penny Woolcock.[10]

Armitstead has been a judge for literary competitions as varied as the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books,[11] the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature,[12] the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature,[13] the 2020 PEN Pinter Prize[14] and the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize.[15] She has been a trustee of English PEN since 2013.[16]

Bibliography
  • (Editor) Tales of Two Londons: Stories From a Fractured City, O/R Books, 2018, ISBN 978-1-682191-36-1

References
  1. "Claire Armitstead". Arts Council. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  2. "Speakers". The Literary Conference. The Literary Consultancyaccessdate=5 November 2020.
  3. "Claire Armitstead". O/R Books. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  4. "Half of a Yellow Sun shocked me into a sense of my own expatriate identity". The Guardian. 19 August 2015.
  5. Lo Dico, Joy (9 October 2006). "Inside Story: Stars of the ultimate book group". The Independent.
  6. "Claire Armitstead". The Guardian.
  7. "Ayọ̀bami Adebayọ̀ in conversation with Claire Armitstead". English PEN. Recorded at the English PEN Literary Salon at the London Book Fair 2017,
  8. "Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism? – books podcast". The Guardian. 26 March 2019.
  9. "Hay Player". Hay Festival. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  10. "Tales of Two Londons". O/R Books. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  11. "2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books: Judging panel 2015". The Royal Society.
  12. "Announcing the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize Longlist". Bocas Lit Fest. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  13. "Longlist announced for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018". DSC Prize South Asian Literature. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  14. "Linton Kwesi Johnson awarded PEN Pinter Prize 2020". English PEN. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  15. "Meet the Jury: Claire Armitstead". Scotiabank Giller Prize. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  16. "Library of exile: no frontiers – celebrating writing in translation". English PEN. Retrieved 5 November 2020.


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