Need a cozy sweatshirt, bookish tote, or mug? Get one at the BookBrowse Merch Store!

Liz Jensen Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Liz Jensen

Liz Jensen

Liz Jensen Biography

Liz Jensen was born in Oxfordshire, to an Anglo-Moroccan librarian mother and a Danish violin-maker father. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and worked first as a journalist in Hongkong and Taiwan. She then worked as a TV and radio producer for the BBC in the UK.

In 1987 she moved to France where she worked as a sculptor and freelance journalist, and she began writing her first novel, Egg Dancing. This was published in 1995, after her return to London, where she wrote Ark Baby (1998), The Paper Eater(2000), War Crimes for the Home (2002), The Ninth Life of Louis Drax (2004), My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (2006) and The Rapture (2009). She is currently working on her eighth novel, a ghost story.

Jensen's work has been short-listed for the Guardian Fiction award, nominated three times for the Orange Prize, developed for film, and translated into more than 20 languages. She has two sons and shares her life with the Danish writer Carsten Jensen, best-selling author of We, The Drowned. She divides her time between London and Copenhagen.

Liz Jensen's website

This bio was last updated on 01/06/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Liz Jensen talks about the success of her book, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, and about Louis himself, a deeply disturbed, accident-prone nine-year-old who narrates the story while in a coma.

How did Louis Drax, a deeply disturbed, accident-prone nine-year-old, plunge from a cliff at a family picnic? And why did he start to breathe again in a French hospital morgue, hours after drowning? These are the mysteries at the core of a taut psychological thriller by Liz Jensen, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax.

The book is a departure for Jensen, whose four previous novels — Egg Dancing, Ark Baby, The Paper Eater and War Crimes for the Home — could be loosely described as black comedies. 'This is my first grown-up book,' is how she describes it. 'But there is some humour in Louis, of a very dark kind.'

The novel opens with Louis's controlling voice: 'I'm not most kids. I'm Louis Drax. Stuff happens to me that shouldn't happen, like going on a picnic where you drown.' Precocious yet naive, he creates freakish stories and imaginary companions, and takes delight in tormenting his therapist.

'When I started writing Louis, I wanted him to be almost demonic, and for there to be a grain of doubt over whether he might be exercising a kind of supernatural power,' Jensen says. 'But he's not scary at all when you get to know him and realise what he's been ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Liz Jensen at BookBrowse
The Uninvited jacket The Rapture jacket The Ninth Life of Louis Drax jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Liz Jensen but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

We recommend 8 similar authors

View all 8 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Dream Count
    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    A searing new novel from the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists, exploring four women's desires.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Jane and Dan at the End of the World
    by Colleen Oakley

    Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    The Dream Hotel
    by Laila Lalami

    A Read with Jenna pick. A riveting novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

  • Book Jacket

    The Antidote
    by Karen Russell

    A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

  • Book Jacket

    Raising Hare
    by Chloe Dalton

    A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, and loss through one woman's friendship with a wild hare.

  • Book Jacket

    Fagin the Thief
    by Allison Epstein

    A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London's most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue.

Who Said...

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B O a F F T

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.