Siobhan Dowd, winner of this year’s Branford Boase Award died on 21st August 2007, following a courageous battle against breast cancer.

Born in London in 1960 to Irish parents, Dowd was educated at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, where she graduated with a BA Hons in Classics. She later gained an MA with distinction in Gender and Ethnic Studies from Greenwich University.

A campaigner for human rights and for freedom of speech, Dowd worked for International PEN as a researcher for the Writers in Prison Committee. She was Program Director of PEN American Center's Freedom-to-Write Committee, leading the Rushdie Defense Committee during her seven year residence in New York City.

A Swift Pure Cry, Dowd's novel for young adults, was published to critical acclaim in 2006. It is a beautifully crafted novel, lyrical and poignant and in spite of its serious subject, has a deft lightness of touch. The novel was shortlisted for all the major prizes; it won the Children’s Books Ireland Eilis Dillon Award and The Branford Boase Award for an outstanding debut novel. Her second novel, for younger readers, The London Eye Mystery, was published in May this year.

Siobhan Dowd was a writer of stellar talent with a warm and generous spirit. It is a bitter irony that she was named one of the top 25 writers of the future, earlier this year.Two books will be published posthumously, Bog Child in February 2008 and Solace of the Road in January 2009.

Information about donations to the Siobhan Dowd Trust from her website http://www.siobhandowd.co.uk/trust/

Guardian Obituary http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2155121,00.html

Independent Obituary http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2891160.ece