Tennant, Emma

(British, 1937– )

Emma Tennant was brought up in Scotland and England, and has worked as both a writer and a journalist, founding the literary magazine Bananas. Tennant is well known for her continuation of several of Jane Austen's novels, which are fun to read if you enjoyed the original. Have a look at Pemberley (1993) and Emma in Love (1996). Tennant's main contribution, however, has been to a body of women's writing which emerged in the 1970s and was concerned to explore different writing styles and feminist ideas. Her best novels include Queen of Stones (1982), a Goldingesque story about some children who disappear in mysterious circumstances, and Wild Nights (1979) which addresses fantasy and childhood and is an important example of a feminist adoption of the magic realist mode.

Susan Hill, Bernice Rubens, Angela Carter  SB