The novel was inspired by Alderman's own experiences of Orthodox Judaism and there are similarities between the protagonist and the author, but it is not autobiographical.

Naomi Alderman's award-winning novel, Disobedience (2006), is regarded as the first novel to explore Orthodox Jewish life in England since George Eliot's Daniel Deronda (1876).ĭisobedience therefore immediately attracted attention, though it was also controversial - partly because of its critique of London's Orthodox Jewish community and partly because it includes a bold and candid portrayal of lesbianism and bisexuality. In October 2016, Alderman published her fourth novel, The Power, a science fiction novel about a world in which women develop the power to conduct electricity. She is Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media at Bath Spa University, and in April 2013 she was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in their once-a-decade list. In 20, Naomi was mentored by Margaret Atwood as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Alderman has also written Borrowed Time (2011), a tie-in novel for the long-running television series, Doctor Who. In 2012 she was one of the co-creators of a hugely popular iPhone fitness game, Zombies, Run!. She has written online games for Penguin and the BBC, and was the lead writer (2004-2007) on the alternative reality game, Perplex City, which was nominated for a BAFTA. In 2009, 'Other People's Gods' was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award.Īlderman is also a successful video games writer and creator. All three novels have been adapted for the BBC Radio Four series Book at Bedtime.Īlderman's short stories have been published in Prospect magazine and various anthologies, as well as being adapted for BBC Radio Four.

It was followed by The Liars' Gospel (2012), a mature and ambitious work that offers different perspectives on the life of Jesus through four different narrators. It was awarded the Orange Award for New Writers in 2006, and the following year Alderman won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.Īlderman's second novel, The Lessons (2010), which explores the lives of a group of Oxford students, has been compared to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. She later returned to the UK and attained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.Īlderman's first novel, Disobedience (2006), inspired by her own upbringing, features a 30-something female protagonist whose father's death is the catalyst for her return to the Orthodox Jewish community in which she grew up. Naomi Alderman was born in London in 1974 and grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community.Īfter attaining a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Lincoln College, Oxford, Alderman spent several years working in New York.

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