Ann Oakley is a writer and a sociologist. In a distinguished career lasting nearly sixty years she has produced many trail-blazing publications that span the fiction – non-fiction divide. Her first published novel, The Men’s Room, was serialised by the BBC in 1991 with Bill Nighy. This was followed by six more novels reflecting her interest in women’s lives, the family, pregnancy and birth, and university life. The strange lockdown life of Alice Henry is her first novel after a break of more than twenty years.

Ann’s non-fiction writings include pioneering books about sex and gender, housework, women’s studies, reproductive health, social policy and research methods. She has published biography and autobiography including the acclaimed Taking it Like a Woman in 1984. Most recently, Forgotten Wives, and Women, Peace and Welfare celebrate buried histories of women’s intellectual and domestic work, and their world-shaping activities as reformers and policy activists.

Ann divides her time between London and a rural retreat in the Midlands, and between writing, research, swimming, gardening and an active role in the lives of her three children and five grandchildren.