Candia McWilliam

Candia McWilliam (born July 1 1955, Edinburgh) is a Scottish author. Her father was the architectural writer and academic Colin McWilliam.

McWilliam was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she obtained first class honours. Her first novel, "A Case of Knives" from 1988, was the winner of a Betty Trask Prize in 1988. [http://facstaff.unca.edu/moseley/trask.html] . Her second novel, "A Little Stranger", was published in 1989. Both books won Scottish Arts Council Book Awards [http://www.contemporarywriters.com/awards/?&skip=2200] . "Debatable Land" from 1994 won the Guardian Fiction Prize [http://facstaff.unca.edu/moseley/guardian.html] and the Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign novel of the year.

Candia McWilliam was one of the judges of the 2006 Man Booker Prize.

In 2004 Candia McWiliam admitted to an audience at the Edinburgh Book Festival that she had struggled with alcoholism. [ Interview with William Lyons, The Scotsman, 18 August 2004] . In early 2006, McWilliam began to suffer from the effects of bletherospasm and has since become severely visually impaired as a result. She has spoken about the experience of blindness at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as well as writing on her situation for the Scottish Review of Books.

Candia McWilliam is the adopted daughter of Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal. [Who's Who 1987, entry under Earl of Portsmouth] . Her first marriage to Quentin Wallop, Earl of Portsmouth, produced two children, including his heir, Viscount Lymington, but ended in divorce. [ Interview in The Scotsman, op cit/ref>. She later married Mark Fisher, Labour MP and former government minister. [Interview in the Sunday Herald with Lesley McDowell, 4 August 2002]

External links

* [http://www.grinzane.it/ Premio Grinzane Cavour]