Alice Winn

"Oxford alumna Alice Winn, who studied English Literature at , may have published just one novel so far, but it is one hell of a debut. Since its appearance in 2023, In Memoriam has met with widespread acclaim and been lauded with prizes – and with good cause. It’s a genuinely compulsive page-turner, a sweeping historical tragedy and an intimate love story all rolled into one, exactly the kind of book that plays on your mind for a long time afterwards. Following a forbidden love between two soldiers in the First World War, you can imagine the acute sense of heartache that runs throughout."

"In the UK world war one is a selling point; in the US its more an obstacle. In the UK we live in the fossilised wreckage of world war one; a lot of people see it as a turning point for the empire and it looms larger in the consciousness."

"Usually, when you read war literature, they’re trying to present what they went through to someone who wasn’t there."

"I find it interesting that most of the was written by officers. The same is not true in France and Germany. I can’t imagine that British privates wrote less — I wonder if they were simply published less? The best piece of writing I read from the perspective of a British private was ’ , but it is abstract and more beautiful than useful, from a research perspective."