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British writer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nina Stibbe (born 1962) is a British writer born in Willoughby Waterleys and raised in Fleckney, Leicestershire. She became a nanny in the household of Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books. Her letters home to her sister became her first book, Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life, which was adapted into the 2016 BBC television series, Love, Nina.
Born in 1962, Nina Stibbe grew up in rural Leicestershire, England, in a single-parent family.[1][2][3] In 1982, she left Leicestershire to work as the nanny in the household of Mary-Kay Wilmers for two years, at 55 Gloucester Crescent, London, looking after Mary-Kay's two children with Stephen Frears, Sam and Will.[4] At the time Gloucester Crescent was the home of a number of notable artistic and literary figures, including Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Claire Tomalin, Karel Reisz, Deborah Moggach and Michael Frayn.[5] This literary environment was completely new to her. During this time, Nina wrote letters to her sister Victoria, back in Leicestershire, detailing her experiences as a nanny amongst the literary elite.[5] These letters became the basis for Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life (2013), which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year and won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2014 National Book Awards.[4][6]
After leaving the Wilmers household, Stibbe studied Humanities at Thames Polytechnic. In 1990 she started work as a marketing assistant at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, then as a rep for the Open University Press, and finally for Routledge, becoming a commissioning editor.[7][8] In 2002 she moved to Cornwall with her partner, Mark Nunney, whom she met while living on Gloucester Crescent, and their children.[7][1]
In 2014, she published her first semi-autobiographical novel, Man at the Helm.[5] Stibbe had been attempting to write the novel for more than 30 years, having struggled to find her voice.[5]
In 2016, Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life was adapted by Nick Hornby for the BBC, as Love, Nina, starring Faye Marsay in the title role and Helena Bonham Carter.[9]
Reasons to Be Cheerful won the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize,[10] making Stibbe the fourth woman to win the prize.[11] Man at the Helm had been shortlisted in 2015 and Paradise Lodge had been on the 2017 shortlist.[12] Two rare breed pigs were named Reasons and Cheerful after the novel's title.[12]
In 2020, Stibbe was awarded the Comedy Women in Print Prize for Reasons to Be Cheerful, winning £3,000.[11]
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