Caroline Moorehead is the biographer of Bertrand Russell, Freya Stark, Iris Origo and Martha Gellhorn. Her book on the French Resistance, Village of Secrets, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. Her most recent book, A Bold and Dangerous Family, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. She lives in London.
In the best book she has so far written, Moorehead corrects this imbalance with a narrative whose coherence perfectly matches its author's admiration for her subjects' redemptive idealism... Moorehead needs to be read by Italians themselves. Over here, meanwhile, she deserves every prize going -- Jonathan Keates * Literary Review * The moving finale of a quartet of books on resistance to fascism... Moorehead conveys the terror with understated power; she is equally good at conjuring the blurred morality of civil conflict...[and] the valleys and wild flowers in technicolour detail * Economist * A sensitive and perceptive book founded on an appreciation of the role women play in any society, at any times. It is sober and serious, but still an easy read... Moorehead is not afraid to show how these women used their femininity to become more effective partisans -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times * Brilliantly and subtly told... The narrative is told with such verve that I frequently had goosebumps: the men and women known from much drier history books come alive... a riveting read -- Tobias Jones * Guardian * Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance...an excellent book... She depicts a tragic fate that is timeless, of dreams forged in adversity, shattered by collisions with practical politics -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *