About The Author

Dinah Mary Jefferies (born 1948) is a British novelist, short story and article writer. Dinah Jefferies was born in Malacca, Malaya in 1948 and moved to England in 1956 at age eight after the country became independent. She studied at the Birmingham College of Art and later at the University of Ulster, where she graduated in English Literature. While in college she became pregnant with her first child, her son Jamie. Jefferies did not remain with Jamie’s father and later went on to marry Jon Owen, with whom she had one daughter, and the family moved into a musicians’ commune. After separating with Owen she began teaching at Dartington Hall School. She later met Richard Jefferies and the two married in 1998.

When her son Jamie was fourteen he was killed in an accident at school and the experience formed part of the inspiration for her 2013 work The Separation. An article in Best Magazine, April 5, 2016 made a number of erroneous statements: that The Tea Planter’s Wife was set in Malaya when it was set in Ceylon; that her son Jamie was on the back of a motorbike driven by another older boy when he died, in fact Jamie was alone and driving it by himself when he died, he was riding in Dartington Hall School. grounds when the older boy let him have a go on it; as well as more minor errors.

Her 2015 novel, The Tea Planter’s Wife , was a choice for the Richard and Judy Bookclub. and was in the Sunday Times best sellers list for 16 weeks continuously from September until Christmas 2015, topping it twice during that time.