Derek Beaven

1947–

British novelist born in south London in 1947. He attended Ashlyns School in Hertfordshire, read English at Oxford University and later settled in Maidenhead, Berkshire. His first novel, Newton’s Niece (1994), whose modern narrator takes on the identity of Isaac Newton’s niece, won a Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book. Acts of Mutiny was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and His Coldest Winter followed in 2005. If the Invader Comes, a wartime love story moving between Malaya and East London, was longlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Derek Beaven’s life

Works

• If the Invader Comes (2001)

Prizes

• If the Invader Comes — The Booker Prize 2001: Longlist