Helen Dunmore: a poet and novelist of range and precision

Helen Dunmore wrote across poetry, novels, short stories and children’s literature, but her work was bound by a close attention to people under pressure. Her fiction ranged from family histories and wartime settings to contemporary subjects; her poems moved between observation and questions of mortality. The breadth of that career is visible in its landmarks: the novel A Spell of Winter, the National Poetry Competition-winning poem “The Malarkey”, and Inside the Wave, the collection that won the 2017 Costa Book of the Year award after her death.

Yorkshire beginnings and a move into writing

Dunmore was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, on 12 December 1952, the second of four children of Betty Smith and Maurice Dunmore. She attended Sutton High School in London and Nottingham Girls’ High School before studying English at the University of York. She spent two years in Finland, from 1973 to 1975, where she worked as a teacher, and later lived in Bristol.

Her first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, appeared in 1983. It began a long publishing career in which poetry was not a sideline to fiction but a continuing part of her work. Collections including The Sea Skater, The Raw Garden and Recovering a Body established a substantial body of poetry before she published Bestiary in 1997. Later collections included Glad of these times and The Malarkey.

Dunmore also wrote for younger readers. Her children’s and young adult books included Going to Egypt, Go Fox, Bestiary and the Ingo books, which began with Ingo in 2005. Some of her children’s books were included in school reading schemes. This work sat alongside, rather than behind, her adult fiction and poetry: she wrote for different audiences without limiting herself to one form.

Novels shaped by history and change

Dunmore’s novels ranged widely in period and subject. Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, won the McKitterick Prize in 1994. Her second novel, Burning Bright, followed in 1994. A Spell of Winter was published in 1995 and won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996. Its family story is set in the years before the First World War, bringing private relationships into contact with a changing historical world.

Her later novels continued that range. The Siege (2001), set during the Leningrad blockade, placed domestic life within the pressures of war. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and the Orange Prize in 2002. Other titles included Mourning Ruby, House of Orphans, The Betrayal, The Lie and Exposure. The variety of these books makes a single label—historical novelist, for example—too narrow for a career that also encompassed contemporary fiction and poetry.

In March 2017, Dunmore published Birdcage Walk, her last novel. It was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize the following year. That same month, she wrote for The Guardian about mortality after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. She died in Bristol on 5 June 2017, aged 64.

Poetry, prizes and a final collection

Dunmore’s poetry was recognised throughout her career. The Raw Garden was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1987, and she won the Cardiff International Poetry Prize in 1990. Her poem “The Malarkey” won the National Poetry Competition in 2010. She was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Inside the Wave, published in April 2017 shortly before her death, was her final poetry collection. Its poems consider life and death, and the collection received both the Costa Poetry Award and the overall Costa Book of the Year award posthumously. The recognition brought a major public distinction to work that had continued alongside her final novel, but the collection’s place in her career rests on more than the circumstances of its publication: it completes a sustained engagement with poetry across more than three decades.

Dunmore’s writing was not confined to prize-winning books. Her short-story collections included Love of Fat Men, Ice Cream and Rose, 1944; Girl, Balancing and Other Stories appeared after her death. Across those forms, her work reached readers in novels, poems, stories and books for children. Her husband was Frank Charnley, whom she married in 1980; they had a son and a daughter, and she also had a stepson.

Why Helen Dunmore deserves a place in British Legacy

Helen Dunmore deserves a place in British Legacy for the range and continuity of her contribution to British writing. Her career joined poetry to fiction rather than treating them as separate accomplishments: from The Apple Fall in 1983 to Inside the Wave in 2017, she published poetry over more than thirty years while also producing novels, short stories and books for younger readers. That range matters because it shows a writer able to work in different forms and for different audiences, including children whose school reading schemes used some of her books.

Her achievements also connect individual works to the wider life of British literature. A Spell of Winter became the inaugural Orange Prize-winning novel, while “The Malarkey” received the National Poetry Competition award and Inside the Wave won the Costa poetry and overall book awards posthumously. These honours mark distinct parts of her work rather than a single success repeated in different forms. Dunmore’s novels also brought readers into varied historical and contemporary settings, from the family story before the First World War in A Spell of Winter to wartime Leningrad in The Siege. Remembering her means recognising a substantial, multi-genre body of writing, and the reach it had among adult and younger readers alike.

Sources

Helen Dunmore — Wikipedia revision 1372318072

Adapted in part from Helen Dunmore by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.