Alice Winn
Irish-American novelist (born 1992)
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Alice Mary Felicity Winn (born 20 December 1992)[1] is an Irish and American novelist and screenwriter, born in France and educated in England.[2] She won the 2023 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for her novel In Memoriam.
20 December 1992
Alice Winn | |
|---|---|
Winn in 2023 | |
| Born | Alice Mary Felicity Winn 20 December 1992 Paris, France |
| Education | Marlborough College; St Peter's College, Oxford |
| Occupations | Novelist and screenwriter |
| Notable work | In Memoriam (2023) |
| Spouse | Chris Turner |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards | Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize |
| Website | alicewinn |
Early life and education
Winn was born and raised in Paris, France, the daughter of Irish and American parents.[3][4] She holds Irish citizenship.[5] She has dyslexia and did not learn to read until she was nine years old.[3] Winn was educated at Marlborough College in England.[6] She graduated with a degree in English literature from St Peter's College, Oxford.[4] She has described having a "tenuous grasp" of her identity.[2]
Career
After graduating, Winn set a goal of writing "a novel a year until I wrote one that was good." Before writing In Memoriam, Winn wrote three unpublished novels, worked on screenplays, and taught homeschooled children.[7]
In 2019, Winn started writing In Memoriam after reading student newspapers published 1913–1919 from her alma mater, Marlborough College.[7] The protagonists, Gaunt and Ellwood, were inspired by her readings of and about Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, respectively.[7]
In 2025, she interviewed the writer Dan Jones at the Edinburgh Book Festival.[8]
Personal life
Winn lives in Brooklyn, New York.[4] Her husband, Chris Turner, is a British and American comedian, and they have a daughter together.[3][7]
Awards and honors
In 2023, Winn won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the British Book Awards Debut Book of the Year for In Memoriam.[9][10][11][12] The book was also nominated for the 2023 Waterstones Book of the Year and won the Waterstones Novel of the Year.[13] In October 2024, the German translation (Durch das große Feuer) won the Young Adult Jury Award of the German Youth Literature Awards at the Frankfurt Book Fair.[14]
Publications
- In Memoriam. Alfred A. Knopf. 2023. ISBN 9780593534564.