麻豆约拍

Katherine Rundell started writing for children at the age of only 21; in little more than a decade she鈥檚 become one of our leading children鈥檚 writers, with six books so far, including the award-winning Rooftoppers, the story of a girl who travels across the rooftops of Paris looking for her mother. Katherine herself is a roof climber and a tightrope walker.

Born in 1987, she grew up in Zimbabwe and Brussels; after taking her undergraduate degree at Oxford, she was elected a Fellow of All Souls College where she wrote her PhD thesis on John Donne. Her book on that great metaphysical poet, Super-infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, was published earlier this year, to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the poet鈥檚 birth.

Katherine Rundell tells Michael Berkeley that her books set out to explain to children that life does contain loss, and pain, and darkness, but that it is always possible to discover joy. Her own childhood was marked by the loss of her sister and she says it is no accident that she lost her sister when she herself was ten and that she writes for ten-year-olds now. She talks too about her love of tightrope-walking and roof-climbing, and about her passion for John Donne, choosing two musical settings of his work. Other music choices include Mozart, Bach, Strauss, Faur茅 and Miles Davis.

Produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus Media production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 3