Nina Bawden

1925–2012

English novelist and children’s writer, born Nina Mabey in Ilford, Essex. Evacuated to Wales during the Second World War, she later studied philosophy, politics and economics at Somerville College, Oxford. Her many books include the adult novel The Birds on the Trees and the children’s novels Carrie’s War and The Peppermint Pig, winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. She was badly injured in the 2002 Potters Bar rail crash, in which her husband was killed. She died in August 2012. Circles of Deceit, narrated by a painter who copies Old Masters, was shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Nina Bawden’s life

Works

• Circles of Deceit (1987)

Prizes

• Circles of Deceit — The Booker Prize 1987: Shortlist