Judith Kazantzis (1940–2018)

Judith Kazantzis was born Lady Judith Pakenham to a literary Anglo-Irish family. Her parents were the 7th Earl and Countess of Longford, Frank Pakenham and Elizabeth Longford, both well-known writers. Many other members of her family are also award-winning writers, including her sisters Rachel Billington and Antonia Fraser. She earned a degree in Modern History, and then lived for many years in London and the USA, returning to live in East Sussex. She has two children from her first marriage, and in 1998, married Irving Weinman, an American writer. Her poems and short stories have appeared since 1977 in many magazines, newspapers, collections, and anthologies, and she has taught and performed her work internationally. She has written reviews of poetry and fiction for the Evening Standard and literary magazines such as London Magazine and Poetry Review. In 2002, she published Cyclops' Cave, a translation from Book IX of Homer's classic The Odyssey. Her novel Of Love and Terror (2002) is a multi-generation story of women in love and war, ranging from London to Central America. She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Sussex from 2005 to 2006, and in 2007 received the Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors for her poetry.