She and her brother David grew up on a Devon farm and in a Leicestershire village, before the family moved to Surrey in 1957.
[3] She currently teaches at the Faber Academy, and is a mentor on the Write to Life programme at Freedom from Torture.
Its title comes from graffiti scrawled on the walls of Warsaw in 1981: Winter is yours, but spring will be ours.
The success of her novel The Hours of the Night in 1995 attracted criticism from Barbara Cartland and others because it included a love affair between a gay couple.
[4] She is also the author of many short stories, and of a Radio 4 drama, Ancient & Modern, broadcast in 2004 with Juliet Stevenson in the lead role.