Nina Bawden, born in Essex in 1925, was a prolific, distinguished and prize-winning novelist. Many of her children’s novels, including Carrie’s War and The Peppermint Pig, have become cherished classics. She also wrote acclaimed adult fiction, notably Circles of Deceit, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her books have been published in translation around the world and some have been adapted for film and television.
In many of her more than forty books, she weaved elements of her own life into her plots. In addition, she wrote an autobiography as well as a memoir describing her experiences during and following the Potters Bar rail crash in 2002 in which her husband died and she was seriously injured. She died in London in 2012.