Tracey Warr’s historical novels imagine their way into the lives of real women who receive slender mentions in medieval chronicles. Her Conquest trilogy depicts the tumultuous life of the medieval Welsh princess, Nest ferch Rhys, the daughter of the last independent Welsh king during the Norman incursions. The trilogy was supported by a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary. Warr’s first novel Almodis was shortlisted for the Impress Prize and the Rome Film Festival Book Initiative. It is based on the life of Countess Almodis de La Marche, who was described by William of Malmesbury as being ‘afflicted with a Godless female itch’. Her second novel, The Viking Hostage, recounts the true story of a French noblewoman kidnapped by Vikings and held hostage on an island off the coast of South West Wales. Warr’s next project, Three Female Lords, has received an Author’s Foundation Award and is a biography of three sisters who lived in 11th century southern France and Catalonia. She teaches on MA Poetics of Imagination at Dartington Arts School.
