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Welcome. I am a writer born in Cambridge, UK in 1989, and living in Turin, Italy. My first novel, following 95 years on a tiny island in the Mediterranean, is The House at the Edge of Night. It was a Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Public Library and NPR best book of 2016, and was listed as one of New York Magazine's '100 Greatest Beach Reads Ever'. In 2018, it won the Saint Maur 'Coup de Coeur' Prize in France, and was a USA Today bestseller. I am currently working on my next novel, The Lit and Unlit World, which follows the women in a vine-growing family in the mountains of north Italy over four generations, and is due to be published in 2023.
My work is published by Penguin Random House in English and is translated into 24 languages. Previously, I wrote a series of young adult books called The Last Descendants. I studied English Literature at Fitzwilliam College, and then took a certificate in secondary education: I have worked as a secondary school teacher, as well as a volunteer tutor and support worker in local social projects in Turin. With a strong interest in human rights, I am a member of PEN Italia and the PEN International Writers' Circle. For several years I was also writing advisor to VOICE, a not-for-profit project which aims to challenge existing narratives around development by providing a platform for humanitarian workers, activists, educators and health- and social-care professionals around the world, who work or volunteer in their own communities, to be able to tell their own stories, in their own words. I supported the VOICE writers during the development of the book A Definition of Snow, published in 2019, and Shifting Lines, published in 2021. I live and work in the beautiful north-Italian city of Turin, where I am currently working on my next book, The Lit and Unlit World. I write novels about small communities in history, often trying to bring to life the forgotten stories of ordinary people and women. My work is somewhere on the boundary between historical fiction, family saga, magical realism and literary fiction, and is inspired by the detailed research that I undertake before beginning each book. I am also influenced by the stories I find around me in everyday life - stories belonging to folklore, social history and popular traditions. A dual citizen of the UK and Italy, I generally research in Italian and write in English, and each book takes me around three years to complete. In the meantime, you can contact me on Facebook, Instagram or by email at catherine@catherine-banner.com. I am always very happy to hear from readers. For enquiries about my work, please contact my agents at Simon Trewin Ltd (www.simontrewin.co.uk) or WME Entertainment (www.wmeagency.com), or one of my publishers: USA: Penguin Random House UK: Hutchinson Canada: Doubleday Italy: Tre60 Norway: Vigmostad and Bjørke Denmark: Rosinante Czech Republic: Euromedia Slovakia: Ikar Spain (Spanish and Catalan): Salamandra Ukraine: Vivat Germany: Ullstein Israel: Keter Slovenia: Ucila Poland: Prosynski i S-ka Serbia: Laguna Bulgaria: Kragozor France: Presses de la Cité Hungary: Maxim Romania: Humanitas Lithuania: Alma Littera Russia: Phantom Netherlands: Luitingh-Sijthoff |
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