Anne Peile

Anne Peile's first novel, Repeat it Today with Tears, was nominated for the 2011 Orange Prize and subsequently published in translation in the Netherlands, Italy and China. The novel, a transgressive love story, was set in 1970s Chelsea.

Her second book, Seeing the World, appeared in a limited signed and numbered edition of 200 copies. With a background of the Kennedy ascendancy, it tells the story of Jane, an odd and isolated child who seems to be subject to episodes of hypnogogia.

Peile’s third book, Pictures in Little, will be published in 2021.

Under the pen name of Anna Fitzwilliam, Peile is also writing a series of detective novels set in 1970s Cornwall, the first of this series is The Trebelzue Gate.

An abiding fascination with mid-twentieth century English social and cultural history is evident in both her literary and detective fiction. She admits that a preoccupation with inconsequential detail - such as the correct contemporary packaging for an everyday household item or the exact month and year of a record’s release – can border on the obsessive.

As a mature student she gained a degree from Exeter University and went on to postgraduate study of the Kennedy presidency. Her interest in the Cold War era informed The Trebelzue Gate with its RAF maritime patrol air base and undertones of espionage and nuclear anxiety.

For a time Peile earned a living as a dealer in vintage goods and architectural salvage. Other jobs have included folding jerseys for Joseph Ettedgui, cataloguing at an auction house, baking cakes, answering complaints for the BBC, selling books at the world's most famous bookshop and drafting ministerial replies in Whitehall.

Peile was born in London and has retained a steadfast devotion to the city and its river. She has also lived in Cornwall, Devon and Belfast, she now lives close to the Thames in Oxford. Divorced, she has three children, her daughters are academics and writers and her son is an actor.