Sarah Waters's Blog

On Monday 26th March at Guildhall, London, the Chamberlain of London presented Sarah Waters with this wonderful honour.

The Freedom of the City is an important traditional event in London's history that can trace its roots to the 13th century, and it is typically presented to individuals associated with London who have made a significant impact in their field of work.

A number of ancient privileges are associated with the Freedom, including the right to herd sheep over London bridge, to go about the City with a drawn sword, and if convicted of a capital offence, to be hung with a silken rope.

In Finland, book bloggers voted for best fiction titles that were translated into Finnish in 2011. Altogether 32 bloggers posted their top picks giving out 135 votes for 61 different titles, and Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger got the most votes.

The book is called Vieras kartanossa in Finnish. It was published by Tammi Publishers and translated by Helene Bützow.

On Tuesday 12th July, the long awaited TV adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel The Night Watch was broadcast across the country. 

With only 90 minutes of screen time to portray a 480 page book, it was always going to be a tough job. But with an incredible cast, spectacular cinematography and a script written by Sarah Waters herself, the result was mesmerising, with Anna Maxwell Martin, Jodie Whittaker and Claire Foy all delivering memorable performances.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, and ending back at the beginning in 1941, The Night Watch offered tantalising glimpses of clandestine worlds. And clearly, we weren't the only ones that were impressed. The Night Watch received an array of incredible responses, some of which are below:

"Insanely tender… Maxwell Martin plays [Kay] brilliantly. Every performance was perfectly weighted – and it looked ravishing"  The Times

"Fans of Sarah Waters' novel will not be disappointed by this beautifully shot adaptation by Paula Milne" Observer 

"An intriguing, atmospheric tale of forbidden love"  Daily Mail    

"Absorbing" The Telegraph

"Gorgeous adaptation of the Sarah Waters novel… the performances are involving and beautifully understated against the backdrop of the London blitz and its horrors" Guardian

"The cast is strong and its portrayal of 1940s sexual nonconformists as spy-like is vividly intact"  Sunday Times, Pick of the Week

The BBC TV adaptation for The Night Watch will be shown on Tuesday 12th July at 9pm, on BBC2. 

Starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Jodie Whittaker, Claire Foy and Harry Treadaway, the 90-minute adaptation is already shaping up to be one of the TV events of the year. There has already been a huge amount of coverage, including this set report from the Telegraph which features interviews with Sarah and some of the cast.

Hilary Salmon, Executive Producer, said: "We are very proud to be making this ambitious film for BBC Two, bringing to our audience the untold stories of ordinary people as they struggle to find love and tenderness during the uncertain nights of the London Blitz. Paula's beautiful script has vividly brought to life Sarah Waters' astonishing and revelatory novel. We are delighted with the outstanding cast we've assembled who represent some of the best young talent in the UK today."

The supporting cast includes: Julia Standing played by Anna Wilson-Jones (Hotel Babylon), Reggie played by Liam Garrigan (Holby City), Nancy played by Claudie Blakley (Lark Rise To Candleford) and Mr Mundy played by Kenneth Cranham (Tess Of The D'Urbervilles.)

The TV tie-in edition is out now.

The long-awaited TV adaptation of Sarah Waters' The Night Watch will be broadcast in July, with the confirmed date for the first episode to be announced imminently.

 

 

Starring Jodie Whittaker, Claire Foy and Anna Maxwell Martin, the series is already generating a huge amount of coverage with interviews with the cast confirmed in Time Out, The Daily Mail, Express on Saturday, The Observer, Independent on Saturday, The Sun, The Mirror and almost all weekly TV listings magazines. Sarah herself will be interviewed by The Telegraph as well as writing a piece for the Radio Times.

 

 

The tie-in edition to the series is out now.

Sarah Waters will be in Greece next month, at the Outview International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

As part of the festival programme, there will be a screening of the BBC TV adaptation of Tipping the Velvet on 1st June at 8.30pm which Sarah will be introducing , as well as taking part in a Q&A session afterwards.

And she will be doing the same for a screening of Fingersmith the following night, 2nd June also at 8.30pm.

For more information see here: www.outview.gr.

Saturday 5th March saw nearly 20,000 "givers" hand out one million free books for the first ever World Book Night (WBN)—an event launched last October with the aim of raising the profile of books nationally.

The 20,000 givers and members of the public took take part in events, parties and celebrations across the UK and Ireland, with many libraries and bookshops extending their opening times.

One of the book's being given away was Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, and Sarah was at the launch event at Trafalgar Square, where book lovers gatherered in their thousands to listen many of the authors on the list read aloud from their work and those of other writers.

 

 A long list of high-profile figures from publishing, media and the arts leant their support to this ambitious initiative by becoming Patrons of World Book Night including Damon Albarn, Dave Eggers, Colin Firth, David Gilmour, Antony Gormley, Seamus Heaney, Damien Hirst, Nigella Lawson, Mary Portas, J.K. Rowling and Tilda Swinton.

World Book Night  encourages givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

   

 

 

  

…and Sarah Waters' Fingersmith is part of this audacious and ambitious book adventure.

20,000 passionate book lovers will give away 1,000,000 books on the inaugural World Book Night.

The countdown begins. World Book Night will take place on Saturday 5 March 2011 and will be broadcast in partnership with BBC Two. This dynamic and unprecedented industry-wide initiative to celebrate adult books and reading will see one million free books given away on World Book Night by 20,000 passionate readers to other members of the public across the UK and Ireland. World Book Night will take place two days after World Book Day, the established nationwide reading campaign.

From 2 December 2010, members of the public are invited to apply to be one of the 20,000 givers of 48 copies of their favourite book chosen from a carefully selected list of 25 titles. Most givers are expected to be passionate readers who will take pleasure in recommending a book they love to other readers. However, World Book Night will also encourage givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

The 25 titles selected for the inaugural World Book Night are:

Kate Atkinson – Case Histories (Black Swan)
Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin (Virago)
Alan Bennett – A Life Like Other People's (Faber/Profile)
John Le Carré – The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Penguin)
Lee Child – Killing Floor (Bantam)
Carol Ann Duffy – The World's Wife (Picador)
Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage)
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Penguin)
Seamus Heaney – Selected Poems (Faber)
Marian Keyes – Rachel's Holiday (Poolbeg/Penguin)
Ben Macintyre – Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury)
Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (Penguin)
Yann Martel – Life of Pi (Canongate)
Alexander Masters – Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)
Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance (Faber)
David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas (Sceptre)
Toni Morrison – Beloved (Vintage)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun (Fourth Estate)
David Nicholls – One Day (Hachette/Hodder)
Philip Pullman – Northern Lights (Scholastic)
Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front (Vintage)
C.J. Sansom – Dissolution (Pan)
Nigel Slater – Toast (Fourth Estate)
Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin)
Sarah Waters – Fingersmith (Virago)

The World Book Night website www.worldbooknight.org will serve as the primary means through which members of the public can apply to be a giver. People will be asked to say in up to 100 words why they want to give away a book chosen from the list and the sort of people they would like to give it to. Information about World Book Night will also be available via libraries and bookshops across the UK and Ireland. The closing date for entries is 4 January 2011.

The 20,000 givers and members of the public will be invited to take part in events, parties and celebrations on World Book Night across the UK and Ireland, with many libraries and bookshops extending their opening times. These events are being organized with the generous support of the Booksellers Association, the Publishers Association, Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, charities and others.

BBC Two will host World Book Night from its inception on December 2 through to the event itself on 5 March. Whether as a giver, recipient or viewer, we hope that BBC audiences will be inspired to get involved with this groundbreaking project.

Anna Maxwell Martin (South Riding), Claire Foy (Little Dorrit), Jodie Whittaker (Accused), Harry Treadaway (Fish Tank) and Kenneth Cranham (Tess of the D'Urbervilles) will star in an adaptation of Sarah Waters' bestselling novel, The Night Watch.

It is adapted by award winning British writer, Paula Milne (Small Island, Endgame, The Virgin Queen and The Politician's Wife) and made by BBC Drama Production. The Executive Producer for the BBC is Hilary Salmon, the producer is Annie Tricklebank and the director is Richard Laxton (Accused and Hancock and Joan).

Kate Harwood, Controller of Series And Serials, said: "BBC Drama Production are very happy to be bringing this wonderful Sarah Waters' novel to the BBC following on from productions of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. This surprising, romantic and sexy novel peels away the clichés of the Blitz spirit and shows us Londoners at their most vulnerable and tender."

This news, coupled with the fact that The Little Stranger is now optioned for feature film, means that Sarah Waters is in the almost unique position of having every single one of her novels dramatised for film or television. Virago will be publishing a film tie-in edition to coincide.

Sarah Waters wrote a piece in The Guardian on Saturday August 7th discussing the reaction to her latest novel. She had this to say on the response to The Little Stranger:

'No other novel of mine has inspired such a range of responses in its audience, and that's been a fascinating experience.'

Read on for the full article at www.guardian.co.uk.