Growing Tales

Three acclaimed authors tackle the the pain, awkwardness and strange joy of growing up.  Esther Freud has frequently returned to this theme in her novels. Sidura Ludwig’s debut novel, Holding My Breath depicts a young woman’s struggle to find her way in the world. The Rowing Lesson, set in South Africa, is a moving story of a daughter’s wish to keep her father alive by retelling his life story.

Novelist Esther Freud was born in London in 1963, the daughter of the artist Lucian Freud. Esther Freud was named as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists 2' by Granta magazine in 1993.Her debut novel, Hideous Kinky (1992), evokes the bohemian childhood of two young children accompanying their mother in her search for freedom and adventure in 1960s Morocco. The novel, which was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, was made into a film. Freud's other novels are; Peerless Flats (1993); Gaglow (1997), shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction; The Wild, (2000); The Sea House (2003), and most recently, Love Falls. Esther Freud lives in London and Southwold, Suffolk.

Anne Landsman is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Devil’s Chimney, nominated for the Pen/Hemingway Award, QPB’s New Voices, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and South Africa’s most prestigious literary award, the M-Net Book Prize.  She lives in New York City.

Sidura Ludwig is the recipient of the Canadian Author and Bookman Prize for Most Promising Writer. She was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, and lived in Birmingham from 2001 to 2004. She now lives in Toronto.

Francesca Segal is a writer and journalist. She currently writes the Debut Fiction column for The Observer.