Barbara Trapido was born in South Africa in 1941 and has lived in the United Kingdom since 1963. She published her first novel
Brother of the More Famous Jackin 1982, winning a Whitbread special prize for fiction. Trapido has written six further novels, including
Temples of Delight(1990),
Juggling(1994), and
Frankie and Stankie(2003), which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award. Her witty, tragicomic novels explore gender, sexuality, race, and class in the UK and South Africa.
Trapido was born to liberal émigré Dutch and German parents in Cape Town. She grew up in Durban and studied English Literature at the University of Natal, where she met historian Stanley Trapido. The couple married and, following police harassment and the arrests
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Citation: Corser, Sophie. "Barbara Trapido". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 March 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14078, accessed 23 November 2024.]