Laline Paull
Laline Paull | |
|---|---|
| Born | London, UK |
| Alma mater | Hertford College, Oxford |
| Occupations | Novelist, writer |
| Writing career | |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Notable works | The Bees (2014); Pod (2022) |
| Website | www |
Laline Paull FRSL is a British novelist. Her debut novel, The Bees, was nominated for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.[1][2][3][4][5] Her 2017 cli-fi novel is titled The Ice.[6] Her 2022 novel Pod was nominated for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction[7] and made the shortlist.[8]
Biography
Laline Paull was born in London, UK. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants. She won a scholarship to the University of Oxford, graduating from Hertford College in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English. She also took screenwriting and theatre courses in London and Los Angeles.[9][10] Paull has cited Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer as an influence on her work,[11] as well as Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, which called for animal welfare, a topic Paull frequently explores.[12]
After years of screenwriting, Paull wrote her first novel, The Bees, in 2014. The novel, which she began writing shortly after the death of a beekeeper friend, was shortlisted for the 2015 Women's Prize for Fiction.[13] Paull's 2022 novel Pod, about a bottlenose dolphin, was longlisted for the same prize in 2023.[11]
In 2023, Paull was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[14]
Themes
The natural world and environmentalism are prominent themes in Paull's work. Paull has said that writing The Bees, which explores life in a honeybee colony, her research "whirled me into the all-too-real pollinator crisis...then forced me to confront the hyper-object that lay behind it: the climate crisis", which in turn led her to write the cli-fi novel The Ice.[12] The Pod, which is about dolphins, was inspired by an incident Paull witnessed of tourists swimming with distressed wild dolphins; she later learned that these dolphins had been displaced by an oil spill.[12] The novel depicts overfishing, ghost gear, and cetacean harvesting.[11]
Bibliography
References
- ↑ Jones, Gwyneth (21 May 2014). "The Bees by Laline Paull review – a fantasy with a sting in its tail | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
- ↑ Clark, Nick (13 April 2015). "Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015: The Bees by Laline Paull creates a buzz on the shortlist | News | Culture". The Independent. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
- ↑ Misra, Ria (24 September 2014). "How Laline Paull Brought Real Science into Her Novel The Bees". Io9.gizmodo.com. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
- ↑ Scott, Catherine (11 June 2014). "The Bees by Laline Paull, review: 'ambitious and beautiful'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
- ↑ Straub, Emma (23 May 2014). "Sunday Book Review : Hive Mentality : The Bees by Laline Paull". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 "Books by Laline Paull". Retrieved 21 September 2017.
- ↑ "Announcing the 2023 Women's Prize longlist!". Women's Prize for Fiction. 7 March 2023.
- ↑ "Announcing the 2023 Women's Prize shortlist". Women's Prize for Fiction. 26 April 2023.
- ↑ "Biography". Retrieved 21 September 2017.
- ↑ "IWD 2023: Alma Mater and Mother Nature". The Bridge. 8 March 2023. Retrieved 21 July 2024.
- 1 2 3 "Five Minutes with Laline Paull". Women's Prize. Retrieved 6 July 2026.
- 1 2 3 Paull, Laline (7 July 2023). "Laline Paull on why she wrote Pod from the perspective of a dolphin". New Scientist.
- ↑ Murad, Mahesh (1 November 2015). "INTERVIEW: Laline Paull, author of The Bees". Dawn. Pakistan.
- ↑ Creamer, Ella (12 July 2023). "Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows". The Guardian.