Barbara Trapido

Barbara (Louise) Trapido (born 1941 as Barbara Schuddeboom), is a British novelist born in South Africa with German, Danish and Dutch ancestry. Born in Cape Town and growing up in Durban she studied at the University of Natal gaining a BA in 1963 before emigrating to London. After many years teaching, she became a full-time writer in 1970.

Trapido has published seven novels, three of which have been nominated for the Whitbread Prize. Her semi-autobiographical Frankie & Stankie, one of those shortlisted, which deals with growing up white under apartheid, gained a great deal of critical attention, most of it favourable. It was also longlisted for the Booker prize. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.

Barbara Trapido lives with her family in Oxford and some of her books have Oxford connections.