Jennifer Dawson

Jennifer Dawson (1929–2000) was an English novelist. She studied at Oxford, where she suffered a breakdown and spent several months in a hospital. After graduating in 1954, Dawson worked as a teacher in a convent in France; a welfare worker in London’s East End; and a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. Her experience both as a mental health professional and a patient formed the basis for her 1961 acclaimed debut novel The Ha-Ha, which won that year’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize as well as being adapted for the stage and broadcast by the BBC on radio and television. Over her lifetime Dawson wrote six more novels, a collection of short stories, and coauthored a children’s book.