Mary Chamberlain (born 3 September 1947) is a British novelist and historian. She has been largely collected by libraries worldwide.
Early life Chamberlain was born 3 September 1947 in South London,Who's Who entry on Mary Chamberlain, 2006 to present. London, A & C Black' and holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh, The London School of Economics and Political Science, and Royal Holloway, University of London.
Family life She is married to the political scientist Stein Ringen.Who's Who entry on Stein Ringen. London, A & C Black. Chamberlain was previously married to Carey Harrison.
Historical career Chamberlain is emeritus Professor of History, at Oxford Brookes University. Her book Fenwomen. Portrait of Women in an English Village was the first book published by Virago Press in 1975, and pioneered the use of oral history in the study of women's history. It was also the inspiration for the Joint Stock production of Caryl Churchill’s award-winning play Fen (1983).Jennifer Dunning, "'Fen,' Unusual On-the-spot Creation", The New York Times, 21 June 1983. Fenwomen has been published in four editions. The latest, by Virago Press, is a special 50th anniversary edition in their Virago Modern Classics series. It has a new introduction by Alexandra Harris. The 1975 edition of Fenwomen was followed by two further books with Virago Press on women’s history: Old Wives’ Tales: Their History, Remedies and Spells and Growing Up In Lambeth.
From 1987 to 1991, she lived in Barbados, and began working in Caribbean history. Using oral history, she published two pioneering studies of migration and families, Narratives of Exile and ReturnPaul Thompson, Review of Narratives of Exile and Return in Reviews in History. and Family Love in the Diaspora: Migration and the Anglo Caribbean Experience,Alan L. Karras, Review of Family Love in the Diaspora, Migration and the Anglo-Caribbean Experience, in Journal of Social History, Vol. 40, No. 4, summer 2007, pp. 1055–1057. and a highly acclaimed study of decolonization, Empire and Nation-building in the Caribbean: Barbados 1937–1966.Franklin W. Knight, Review of Empire and Nation-building in the Caribbean: Barbados 1937-1966 in The International History Review, Vol. 35, Issue 2, 2013.
Chamberlain is widely considered one of the founders of oral history,Mary Chamberlain interviewed by Robert Wilkinson, Oral History of Oral History in the UK, British Library. was the reviews editor of the Oral History Journal from 1977 to 1987 and co-founder of the London History Workshop Centre."History Workshop Centre for London History: An Announcement", History Workshop Journal, 13 (1): 182-183, 1 March 1982. See also "London History Workshop Centre, London", National Archives She is the author of many articles on women's history, oral history and Caribbean history, has edited a number of books, and was a founding editor or the series Memory and Narrative. She has served on editorial, advisory and government committees,Paul Sutton, "The Caribbean Advisory Group: A Memoir", in The Caribbean Journal of International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2014. and held visiting professorships at the University of the West Indies (1995, 2004), and New York University (2004). She has been the recipient of a number of research awards and is an adviser to the National Life Story Collection at the British Library"National Life Stories", British Library. and the Raphael Samuel History Centre."Centre Team and Advisory Group", The Raphael Samuel History Centre.
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1149/27) with Mary Chamberlain in 2012 for its Oral History of Oral History collection held by the British Library.National Life Stories, 'Chamberlain, Mary (1 of 21) National Life Stories Collection: Oral History of Oral History', The British Library Board, 2012. Retrieved 9 October 2017
Fiction career Her UK debut novel The Dressmaker of Dachau was published in 2015, and sold to 19 countries. She credits the inspiration for the story to two of her aunts, of whom one left the family and ran away, and the other was imprisoned by the Nazi regime during the Second World War."An Interview with Mary Chamberlain", Random House Reader's Circle, 14 January 2016. Other fiction works include 'The Hidden' (2019), set in the Channel Islands under the Nazi occupation, 'The Forgotten' (2021) based in Berlin in 1945 and England in the 1950s and 'The Lie' (2023) about the fraught relationship of sisters spanning six decades, all published by Oneworld. She is also the author of an earlier novel set in the Caribbean, The Mighty Jester.
Activism Chamberlain was one of the London Recruits, a group of young people recruited by the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1960s and 1970s to smuggle ANC and SACP literature into South Africa after the ANC had been decimated by the Rivonia trials of 1963/4.Ken Keable (ed.), London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid, Pontypool: The Merlin Press, 2012.Mary Chamberlain, "My secret war against apartheid: Mary Chamberlain risked everything to help break the regime in South Africa", The Independent, 8 April 2015.See also London Recruits.
Awards Chamberlain was awarded an honorary Doctorate (D.Litt) by the University of East Anglia in 2021.
Bibliography The Lie (2023) The Forgotten (2021) The Hidden (2019) The Dressmaker of Dachau (2015) The Mighty Jester (2014) Empire and Nation-building in the Caribbean: Barbados 1937 – 1966 (2010) Memories of Mass Repression (editor, with Nanci Adler, Selma Leydesdorff, Leyla Neyzi, 2009) Family Love in the Diaspora: Migration and the Anglo Caribbean Experience (2006) Caribbean Families in Britain and the Transatlantic World (editor, with Harry Goulbourne, 2001) Caribbean Migration: Globalised Identities (editor, 1998) Narrative and Genre (editor with Paul Thompson, 1998, 2004) Narratives of Exile and Return (1997, 2004) Growing Up In Lambeth (1989) Writing Lives (editor, 1988) Old Wives’ Tales: Their Histories, Charms, Spells (1981, 2006) Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village (1975, 1983, 2011, 2025)
References
External links Official website Oxford Brookes University staff profile