Joanne Harris is half-French, half-English. Born in Yorkshire in 1964, she lived with her parents and English grandparents above the family sweetshop until she was three. As a child, Joanne spent holidays in France with her French maternal grandparents and extended family. They came from Vitré, in Brittany, and her grandfather had a house on an island, Noirmoutier, off the southern coast there. As her parents were both teachers, they were able to visit France for the lengthy school holidays during which Joanne sometimes forgot how to speak English.

Joanne was educated at Wakefield Girls' High, Barnsley Sixth Form College and read Modern and Medieval Languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. On graduating, she had a fleeting career in accountancy, before starting a teacher training course.

Joanne met her husband, Kevin, at school in 1981 and they married ten years later. They speak English to each other, but Joanne speaks French to their daughter Anouchka. Joanne's mother still lives very close to them, and mostly speaks French. Joanne has no desire to move away from the area, where she has lived all her life apart from her time at Cambridge. Her hobbies include martial arts, which she had to give up when pregnant, gardening and cookery.

Joanne's writing career

Joanne on food

Chocolat

'Is this the best book ever written? This is a truly excellent book, one of the best it has been my pleasure to read in the line of duty for years. Joanne Harris achieves everything a novelist should aim for, with no sense of effort or striving...Harris' achievement is not only in her story, in her insight and humour and the wonderful picture of small-town life in rural France, but also in her writing. Like good cooking, it is in turn rich without being fussy and plain without being dull. In short, this is what we call a rave review' Literary Review

'Moody and atmospheric...Harris writes confident and stylish prose...a richly textured tale, evoking the claustrophobia of village life, and its amusements, with an impressively light touch' Independent

'This novel is mouthwatering. Its title and its rich blue, pink and gold dustjacket entice you to try it and, once you do, you find yourself unable to stop until you've finished feasting on this delightful, quirky, sensuous story. This is also a feelgood book of the first order. One to curl up with. To luxuriate in...so full of colour, tastes and scents, that as you are lured by the plot and the wonderful descriptions, your senses are left reeling. This novel is a celebration of pleasure, of love, of tolerance. Read it'
The Observer

'This delicious, bewitching novel provides the antidote to all those late 20th century body shape obsessions; to all those tired and tiring Bridget Jones stereotypes. Here's a story, written by a woman, that celebrates chocolate without guilt! ...Harris unfolds a huge tale of life, love, death and bereavement, of fear and violence, of murder and bravery and - most important - happiness. The author's joy in her creation is obvious and infectious' Scotland on Sunday

'An enjoyable, not to say addictive, read...short enough to be read at a sitting, and light enough for its unashamedly hedonistic message to be swallowed without indigestion. A chocolate soufflé of a novel - with a pleasantly bitter aftertaste' The Times

Blackberry Wine

'Harris is at her best when detailing the sensual pleasures of taste and smell. As chocoholics stand advised to stock up on some of their favourite bars before biting into Chocolat, so boozers everywhere should get a couple of bottles in before opening Blackberry Wine' Guardian

'Joanne Harris has the gift of conveying her delight in the sensuous pleasures of food, wine, scent and plants…[Blackberry Wine] has all the appeal of a velvety scented glass of vintage wine' Daily Mail

'If Joanne Harris didn't exist, someone would have to invent her, she's such a welcome antidote to the modern preoccupation with the spare, pared down and non-fattening. Not for her the doubtful merits of an elegant and expensive sparkling water or an undressed rocket salad. In her previous novel, Chocolat, she invoked the scent and the flavour of rich, dark, sweet self-indulgence. In Blackberry Wine she celebrates the sensuous energy that can leap from a bottle after years of fermentation…Harris bombards the senses with the smells and tastes of times past…Harris's talent lies in her own grasp of the quality she ascribes to wine, "layman's alchemy, the magic of everyday things." She is fanciful and grounded at the same time - one moment shrouded in mystery, the next firmly planted in earth. Above all, she has wit' Sunday Express

'Touching, funny and clever narrative…[Joanne Harris] is no one-hit wonder - in fact she is so terrific, she can write about anywhere, anything, anyone. And I hope she does so. Soon' Daily Telegraph

'Both novels [Chocolat and Blackberry Wine] display immense charm - an admirable lightness of touch and warmth of characterisation which make for a delightful read' Independent

Five Quarters of the Orange

'Harris has a gift for injecting magic into the everyday … She is an old-fashioned writer in the finest sense, believing in a strong narrative, fully rounded characters, a complex plot, even a moral' Daily Telegraph

'Five Quarters of the Orange completes a hat-trick of food-titled tales with a riveting story about a young girl brought up in occupied France who's now an old woman harbouring a terrible secret. Harris is light-years ahead of her contemporaries. She teases you with snippets of a bigger story, gently pulling you in with her vivid descriptions of rural France until you can actually smell the oranges' Now

'Joanne Harris's latest novel indulges in familiarities from her earlier books; a sensuality rising from the smells, tastes and colours of lusciously described dishes, so that old men become "sweetened with dementia" and Reinette's eyes are "almost gold, the colour of boiling syrup"; a strong, powerful but damaged woman at the centre, in this case Framboise's mother; the inescapability of the past. This mix is served up in the kind of delicate, precise yet rich prose that has reviewers reaching irresistibly for those foodie metaphors which are spread generously over the jacket covers of every Harris book' Independent on Sunday

'Just as she did in Chocolat, Harris indulges her love of rich and mouth-watering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses with seductively foreign names, and evoking the textures and smells of food. These descriptions are suffused with a child's wide-eyed wonder that lends the story a magical quality, almost like a folk tale or a children's story. Even having the Occupation as a backdrop, Harris sets out to tella story that proves, like her previous books, to be thoroughly enjoyable…' Guardian Weekly

'Joanne Harris's rather brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is a fascinating page-turner with a compelling climax … This is an absolutely remarkable book that deserves to be read over and over again' Punch

Coastliners

'Everything about her style is aerodynamic…Harris writes well, and charming, cinema-friendly images and cinematic mysteries abound…stylish and economical' Sunday Times

'Coastliners is another triumph for Joanne Harris who shows that her powerful imagery is not exclusive to food and uses the coastline, sea and beaches to heighten the senses, drawing the reader further in with each incoming tide. A must-read' Punch

'Harris is a writer of tremendous charm, who creates a winning blend of fairy-tale morality and gritty realism' Independent

'Harris' knowledge of France is completely authentic, and present in the detail. For this book she has studied the sea, the island community, the nautical detail, meticulously and it shows. It gives the novel interest and weight' Scotsman

'Prettily packaged… this is the perfect book to put in a beachbag bound for an island in the sun, preferably one less eventful than Le Devin' The Times

'Harris is perfect at portraying the suspicious nature of the regional French, while conveying her genuine affection for them and making them seem illusively romantic…A wonderful novel about the pull of family and community ties, and of a woman's need for her father's love and approval' Glamour

'This fascination with what binds small communities has always suffused Harris's work, and is in evidence in Coastliners. Harris writes as evocatively of the salt wind and rising tides as she has done previously about chocolate or the smell of oranges' Metro

'[Harris'] fascination for all things French continues, and in Coastliners she brings her sensuous, evocative depictions of French village life to another part of France…Her writing is atmospheric as ever - you can almost feel the sand between your toes and taste the salty air' Heat

'A book that will transport you to the island of your childhood and those lazy, hazy days of the seaside… Extremely evocative' Irish Tatler