Jenny Downham

Jenny Downham (born 1964) is a British novelist and an ex-actress who has published four books.

Career

Her debut novel, Before I Die, is the fictional account of the last few months of a sixteen-year-old girl who has been dying of leukaemia for four years.[1] The book won the 2008 Branford Boase Award.[2] It was short listed for the 2008 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize[3] and the 2008 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year and nominated for the 2008 Carnegie Medal and the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize.[4] In 2012 it was adapted into a film called Now Is Good and starred Dakota Fanning.[5]

Downham's second novel, You Against Me, was published in December 2010.[6] The book is a novel about family, loyalty, and the choices which we have to make.

Her third novel, Unbecoming, published in 2015, is a story of three generations of women and the uncovering of family secrets.[citation needed]

Her fourth, Furious Thing, published in October 2019, was shortlisted in the children's book category of that year's Costa Book Awards.[7]

References

  1. ^ "Before I Die by Jenny Downham - review". The Guardian. 8 October 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  2. ^ "Previous Winners – The Branford Boase Award and The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition". branfordboaseaward.org.uk. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  3. ^ Guardian Staff (5 September 2008). "Guardian children's fiction prize shortlist". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  4. ^ "Before I Die by Jenny Downham". penguin.com.au. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  5. ^ "Now Is Good – review | Movies". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  6. ^ You Against Me: Amazon.co.uk: Jenny Downham: Books. Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
  7. ^ iNews 2019-11-26. Retrieved 2019-11-26.


Stub icon

This article about a novelist from the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.