Alison Light is a full-time writer. She is the author of five books of non-fiction to date and numerous other publications; she is a contributor to the London Review of Books and has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement among others. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Historical Society.
She is currently an Honorary Fellow in English and History at Pembroke College, Oxford and has held honorary professorships at University College, London and Edinburgh University.
All her books have been enthusiastically reviewed in the national and international press. Mrs Woolf and the Servants (2007) was runner-up for the Longmans History Prize and long-listed for the Samuel Johnson (now the Baillie Gifford) prize in non-fiction. Common People (2014) was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize. A Radical Romance (2019) won the Pen Ackerley prize for memoir.
As the widow of the socialist historian, Raphael Samuel, who died in 1996, she spent several years helping to establish the Raphael Samuel History Centre and Archive in London.
News
Alison's next book Red, Red Robin: My Long Goodbye to Home is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in May 2026.
It can be pre-ordered from Waterstones or Amazon
You can hear Alison talking about her book on:
- 7th May with Ella Westland at the Fowey Literary Festival
- 13th May with historian, David Kynaston at Waterstones bookshop, Gower Street, London
- 15th May with historian, Lyndal Roper, at Blackwells bookshop, Oxford
- 30th May with Margaret Drabble at Foyles, London
Listen to Alison discuss micro- and macro-history on Radio Four Freethinking (June 2024)
Listen to Alison read her own poem 'She feels guilty being happy' in a medley of original verse and prose chosen by the Ted Hughes Society
Recent podcasts
Listen to Alison talk about Agatha Christie in the US series of podcasts, All About Agatha.
Listen to Alison discuss crime and the servant question on 'Shedunnit': The Servant Problem: Shedunnit
Recent articles
Alison's review in The Guardian of Madeleine Bunting’s book, Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care, about care, paid and unpaid, in today's society:Labours of Love by Madeleine Bunting review – a humbling book about care
See Alison's reviews in the London Review of Books
Light gives our thoughts space to breathe alongside her own.
Intelligent Life Magazine, Economist
Her instincts continue to be those of the dissenter.
London Review of Books
© Alison Light 2026