Sarah Dunant was born and brought up in London, Sarah studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge from where she went on to become a writer, broadcaster, teacher and critic. 

She has written fourteen novels, four of which have been short listed for awards,  and edited two books of essays. For many years she worked for the BBC in radio and television,  including BBC 2 TV’s arts programme, The Late Show and Radio 3’s Nightwaves and Radio 4’s A Point of View. A founding vice patron of the Women Prize for fiction in the UK, she has sat on the editorial board of the Royal Academy magazine and reviewed for, among others, The Times, The Literary Review, The Guardian and the New York Times

An accredited fine art lecturer with THE ARTS SOCIETY, she taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and creative writing at University Oxford Brookes where, in 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to higher education and literature. 

Having cut her teeth writing thrillers, in 2000 she moved back to her first love, history and the Italian renaissance, writing first a trilogy of novels on women, which drew on new historical scholarship and became international best sellers, translated into thirty languages.  

The Birth of Venus 2004 

In the Company of the Courtesan 2007 

Sacred Hearts, 2010

She followed these with two novels on the Borgia family, rehabilitating the much-maligned Lucrezia Borgia.

Blood and Beauty 2013

In the name of the Family 2017

Her latest book, illustrated novel,  brings alive the life and times of the first lady of the renaissance, art collector and political manipulator, Isabella d’Este.

The Marchesa 2025

She is currently working on a novel on The Other Sack of Rome in 1527. Once again, mixing accurate history with compulsive story telling.