'Rebel Writers' explored by Brayfield for I B Tauris

Independent I B Tauris has signed novelist Celia Brayfield’s new book Rebel Writers in a deal made with Curtis Brown.

Brayfield will tell the story of a "pioneering" group of young women writers - Shelagh Delaney, Edna O’Brien, Lynne Reid Banks, Margaret Forster, Virginia Ironside, Charlotte Bingham and Nell Dunn - who "challenged the status quo and changed women’s lives forever".

Brayfield is the author of five non-fiction titles and nine novels, most notably Heartswap, which is currently in development as a feature film, Mister Fabulous And Friends, and Wild Weekend.   

Brayfield said: "These are the novelists who inspired me when I was growing up so I'm delighted that I can pay tribute to them in Rebel Writers. When I was a schoolgirl the idea that a woman could be a novelist when she was 17 or 18, and be successful and scandalous as well, was thrilling. They made me believe in myself as a writer.

"Later on, I started to compare these writers to their male contemporaries, the Angry Young Men, and realised that they were just as much of a literary movement, - and far more influential. Because they told the truth about being a woman at that time, which was pretty tough, they changed people's minds about gender, sexuality, race and class, and laid the foundations for second-wave feminism."

Tatiana Wilde, senior editor at I B Tauris, said: "We are delighted to be publishing Celia Brayfield’s groundbreaking and timely new book, especially now, when women across the world are breaking down barriers and carrying on the struggle for equality and recognition." 

Rebel Writers: Seven Women Who Changed Their World will be published in May 2019 by I B Tauris, priced at £19.99.