Renowned classical actor and crime writer
View(s):Fiona Shaw
Aunt Petunia is coming to visit. Tony Award Nominee Fiona Shaw might prefer that you remember her for the stage performances that twice won her a Lawrence Olivier Theatre Award and another two London Critics Circle Theatre Awards – after all she is a much admired classical actor – but to an international audience she remains most recognizable for her role in the Harry Potter films.
Fans of vampires are likely to also know Shaw as Marnie Stonebrook in Season 4 of True Blood, where the local shop-owner and palm-reader, and leader of the Wiccan coven,is possessed and sets out to kill all vampires.
Shaw brings a serious talent to these popular roles. She was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Her award-winning theatre work includes Happy Days and Richard 11 for the National Theatre which toured internationally, also The Waste Land and Medea and Testament of Mary on Broadway, Hedda Gabler, Mother Courage and Shakespeare’s Portia and Beatrice and Kate. She is also prolific in film, including My Left Foot and The Tree of Life.
She also acted in The Black Dahlia (2006). She has directed four operas, most recently The Rape of Lucretia for Glyndbourne this summer. She was awarded an honorary C.B.E. in the 2001 Queen’s Honours List for her services to drama.
Andrea Maria Schenkel
Andrea Maria Schenkel’s sensational first novel Tannöd (Murder Farm) was published in 2006. Short and brutal, her debut novel told the story of a murdered family in a German village after the Second World War: old man Danner, his wife, their daughter, her two children and their new maid all slaughtered with a pick-axe. Based on a true story, it interlaid differing accounts of the killings and the family.
The book was an incredible success: it received the DeutscherKrimiPreis, the Friedrich-Glauser-Preis and the Corine in 2007, and the Martin Beck Award for the best international crime novel in 2008.
It sold over a million copies, was translated into 20 languages and made into a film. With her second book, Kalteis (Ice Cold), 2007, she became the first German author to win the German Crime Book award twice in a row. Her most recent publication was Bunker (2009).
Through all her books, Schenkel plays with format and perspective to create a multitude of voices. “Crime writers have to use considerable ingenuity to bring anything fresh to the genre,” wrote a critic in the Times Literary Supplement, declaring that Schenkel had managed to pull it off. Another critic wrote that the author has “shown and redefined the possibilities and responsibilities of the genre.”
| The lucky winners!Three lucky readers are off to the Fairway Galle Literary Festival! They are the lucky winners of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival Quiz in which we asked you to answer three questions based on our ‘Meet the Authors’ column published in the Sunday Times. Theirs were the first correct answers picked from the entries received and they win free passes to the Festivals in Galle and Kandy courtesy the Fairway Galle Literary Festival.Congratulations! The two who win Festival Passes to the Fairway Galle Literary Festival in Galle from January 13 -17 are: Doreen Peiris And Harindi Hettiarachchi The winner of the Festival Pass to the Fairway Galle Literary Festival in Kandy from January 9-10 is: Nandika Fonseka We thank all our readers who took part in the contest – remember you can still catch the FGLF this month. The winners will receive their passes shortly. |
