Lesley Hayes

Lesley Hayes is a UK author of literary fiction with a distinctly psychological edge. For the past thirty years she has also practised as a psychotherapist, as you might guess when reading one of her thirteen novels or eight short story collections. Defying obvious genre, what they each have in common is her fascination with the human condition. Her most recent novel is The Girl in the Photograph, a moving exploration of identity, family and friendship. Previous novels include The Way Through the Woods, a sequel to The Drowned Phoenician Sailor, A Field Beyond Time, and The Architect. She has also written numerous collections of short stories, many previously aired on BBC Radio Oxford, the latest of which is titled Life Work. Among her previous award-winning novels is the compelling Written in Water trilogy which follows the lives of three women from the nineteen-sixties to the present day: Exits and Entrances, Better Strangers, and Strange Eventful History. In 2021 she also published a collection of her autobiographical poems, Soul Songs: Fragments of a Life. She lives in Oxford, where she derives much of the inspiration for her books.