British · b. 1944
Gaynor Arnold's debut novel "Girl in a Blue Dress" reimagined the marriage of Charles Dickens through his abandoned wife's perspective. The 2008 Man Booker Prize longlisted work gave voice to Catherine Dickens, transformed into "Dorothea Gibson," excavating the woman behind the great man mythology. Arnold, a late-blooming novelist, brought her experience as a social worker to fiction about women whose stories go untold.