Анни Фрейд

 Annie Freud was born in London in 1948. She is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud, maternal grand-daughter of sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, and the great-grand-daughter of Sigmund Freud. Freud was educated at the Lycee Francais de Londres and then studied English and European Literature at Warwick University. Since 1975, she has worked intermittently as a tapestry artist and embroiderer, exhibiting work and undertaking commissions from people such as Anthony D’Offay, Jon Snow and Graham Norton. Her first full collection from Picador, The Best Man Who Ever Was, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation in 2007, and went on to receive the Glen Dimplex New Writers’ Award in the same year.

Annie Freud's new book The Mirabelles, which came out in October 2010, is shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2010.

Here are the Selector's Comment from the PBS Bulletin (Winter 2010): 'The Mirabelles in Annie Freud's second collection, and a quick glance at the contents page reveals a similar penchant for highly arresting titles we might recognise from her first book, The Best Man That Ever Was; should we turn to 'Cod's Roe for a Crying Woman' first, or does 'Sting's Wife's Jam Has Done You Good' take your fancy? Though however much the titles here might draw us in, or draw attention to themselves which really impress; the way sensuousness, desire or disappointment are alloyed to the picaresque or the encomiastic; the way her narratives can carry us into unusual emotional territory and end up striking strange, beguiling chords. (...) Overall, the book achieves a convincing point of balance between a predeliction for the quirky or whimsical and weightier, deeper shadings by admitting both into the same spaces. It also feels, from line to line, thoroughly convincing, distinctive and effortless. In The Mirabelles, Freud has produced that very rare bird: the excellent second collection.'

Annie is running a workshop for us in Exeter on 11 December, it's called 'Stolen Poetry'. Click here for more information and to book a place.