Anne Sebba Historian

I’m always writing or thinking about what I’d like to be writing and, even after nine books, the thrill of holding the first copy of a new book has not lessened. This year sees the publication of That Woman: a life of Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor alongside a C4 television documentary based on my book and the new information I have unearthed. Publication by St Martin’s Press in the US will follow early in 2012.

Most of my previous books have been about strong women who have carved out a life against the odds from Enid Bagnold, to Mother Teresa and Laura Ashley, and most of my journalism is about women who have fought for their own rights or the rights of others. I call them all Fighters and Writers. In 2009 I wrote and presented a Radio 3 docu-drama called The Daffodil Maiden about the pianist Harriet Cohen. Gillian Reynolds described it as “This frank and moving account … beautifully produced.” (Daily Telegraph) In 2010 I wrote and presented another musical story, this time for Radio 4, called Who Was Joyce Hatto?

But if you’ve come to this page it’s probably because you want some information about me to use as an introduction for a talk since these days I talk almost more than I write.

Here it is then:

Anne Sebba is a biographer, lecturer, journalist and former Reuters foreign correspondent. She read History at Kings College, London University and her first job was at the BBC World Services in the Arabic Department. She has written eight books, several short stories and introductions to reprinted novels. She has presented documentaries on BBC R3 and BBC R4, is a member of the Society of Authors Executive Committee and her latest biography is of Wallis Simpson called That Woman.

Before Wallis I wrote about another American woman who shocked the British establishment. Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother was published by John
Murray in 2007 in the UK and by W.W. Norton in the US where they called it American Jennie: the Remarkable Life of Winston Churchill’s Mother.

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