Norah Ethel Robinson was born in Shipdham, Norfolk to Isaac Robinson and Ethel Garner, and grew up in Bury St Edmunds where she was educated at Guildhall Feoffment Girls School and the County Grammar School for Girls in the town.

Her creation of this fictitious area of England is reminiscent of Thomas Hardy's creation of "Wessex"; and her use of recurring characters such that the protagonist of one novel appears as a secondary character in others is even more reminiscent of William Faulkner's work set in "Yoknapatawpha County," Mississippi.

Lofts' work set in East Anglia in the 1930s and 1940s shows great concern with the very poor in society and their inability to change their conditions.

[citation needed] She was not afraid to tackle potentially sensitive subjects; her version of the nativity of Jesus, with backstories of Mary, Joseph, the Magi, the shepherds - even the innkeeper - is rendered in How Far to Bethlehem?

[7] In the United States, she won a National Book Award for I Met a Gypsy, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.