Honoured authors book appointments at Palace
AUTHORS Joanna Trollope and Lee Child are made CBEs, while Sarah Waters becomes an OBE for services to literature.
Trollope has published some 25 books since 1998, most recently including An Unsuitable Match, City of Friends and Balancing Act.
After winning a scholarship to Oxford University, she joined the Foreign Office and then became a teacher of English.
She began writing “to fill the long spaces after the children had gone to bed” and for many years combined her writing career with working in education.
Jack Reacher author Child said his award was a “great honour”.
The writer, whose literary action hero has been brought to life on the big screen by Tom Cruise, said: “Someone read my books and enjoyed them enough to put my name forward for this great honour, which in itself is all a writer could ask for.”
The 64-year-old, whose real name is James “Jim” Grant, was born in Coventry, but grew up in Birmingham.
One of his books is reportedly sold every nine seconds.
His writing career developed later on in his life and he started putting pen to paper only at the age of 40, after being made redundant following an 18-year career in television.
Famed for her raunchy novels featuring lesbian protagonists, including the criticallyacclaimed Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, Waters is one of Britain’s most successful novelists.
The former work won the Lambda Literary Award and the Betty Trask Award.
She said: “Writing is, by its nature, a very solitary pursuit: you spend most of your time as an author hidden away.
“So to receive this kind of very public honour is a huge thrill.
“I’m absolutely delighted, and a little bit dazed.”
Born in Pembrokeshire in 1966, Waters worked as an academic before writing her first novel immediately after her doctoral thesis.
Iam absolutely delighted, and a little bit dazed. Tipping the Velvet writer Sarah Waters.