About
Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke is the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, Piranesi, The Wood at Midwinter and The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City.
Susanna Clarke's first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2004 and won the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2005. A collection of short stories set in the same England, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, followed in 2006.
Piranesi was published in 2020 and won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021. The Wood at Midwinter, a short illustrated winter story, was published in 2024.
A new story from the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City, is published on 20 October 2026.
A Life in Writing
Before becoming a full-time novelist, Clarke worked as a cookbook editor. In 1993 she began work on what would become Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, developing the book gradually over the following years and writing in her spare time.
The novel took around ten years to complete. Published by Bloomsbury in 2004, it found readers internationally and received the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2005.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories followed in 2006, returning to the world and atmosphere of that same England while allowing for shorter, more intimate stories.
After a prolonged period of illness that significantly affected her ability to write, Clarke returned to fiction with Piranesi in 2020. The novel marked a strikingly different setting and scale: in place of historical England, the mysterious House, and a solitary narrator moving through its halls. Piranesi won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021.
Her later work has continued to move between forms and scales of storytelling. The Wood at Midwinter, an illustrated winter story, was published in 2024. The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City, a new story from the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, is published in 2026.
Early life
Clarke grew up in various parts of northern England and Scotland, the daughter of a Methodist minister. The landscapes and history of Britain have formed an important background to her imagination and writing.
Writing and career
Clarke's fiction moves between the long, footnoted history of English magic and the quieter, stranger interiors of Piranesi's House. It ranges from the imagined history and folklore of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, through the shorter stories of The Ladies of Grace Adieu, to the very different world of Piranesi, and on to her later illustrated and short-form works.
The work is unified by patience: books written slowly, worlds described exactly.
Awards and recognition
- World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, 1997 — awarded to Starlight 1 for the story “The Ladies of Grace Adieu”
- Time Magazine's Best Novel of the Year, 2004 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Hugo Award for Best Novel, 2005 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, 2005 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Locus Award for Best First Novel, 2005 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, 2005 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, 2005 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Geffen Award (Israel) for Best Fantasy Book, 2007 — Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Women's Prize for Fiction, 2021 — Piranesi
- Kitschies Red Tentacle Award for Best Novel, 2021 — Piranesi
- Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year, 2021 — Piranesi, narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Honorary Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa), 2024