Catherine Cookson

Born on 27th June, 1906, Dame Catherine Cookson is one of the UK’s well-known English authors. She had written her first short story at the age of eleven, which was titled, ’The Wild Irish Girl’. She has written over 90 novels, which have been translated into 20 languages, including Finnish. Most of her novels depict the poor conditions of people in the North East of England. They are set in mines and shipyards or the farms and surrounding countryside in various periods from nineteenth century onwards. She also used her personal experiences of her family and friends as base material to build upon and write in her novels.

Catherine Cookson wrote books under the pseudonym, Catherine Marchant and had sold over 90 million copies in the year 1990. Her first piece of art was published in 1950 and was partly the auto-biographical story of Kate Hannigan, a character of a working class girl, impregnated by an upper class man. Kate Hannigan gives up her child to her parents' care and lets the baby grow up believing she is her elder sister, not her mother. Most of the characters in her novels cross the class barrier by means of higher education.

Several of her novels have been serialised, filmed and stages as well. She was the ’most borrowed author’ from public libraries in the UK for more than 20 years. Catherine Cookson has won many titles and accolades, including the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside ñ a degree from University of Newcastle. Additionally, she was titled as ’Writer of the Year’ by the Variety Club of Great Britain and was also voted ’Personality of The North-East’. She received the prestigious ’Order of the British Empire’ title and also declared as the Dame Commander of OBE in the year 1993.