朱莉娅·唐纳森

朱莉娅·唐纳森女爵士，DBE（英语：Dame Julia Donaldson，1948年9月16日—），英国儿童图书作家，其版税收入比《哈利波特》作者J·K·罗琳还要多，是2014年第一季英国最畅销作家。

生平

唐纳森本姓希尔兹（Shields），1948年出生于伦敦汉普斯特德，家中除了父母和妹妹玛莉之外，还有一只叫做杰弗里的猫。1967-1970年于布里斯托大学修读戏剧和法文，期间认识了现任丈夫，他们课余在酒吧献唱赚取外快，后来唐纳森更加开始自己作曲。二人于1972年9月结婚，婚礼以戏剧形式进行，两位新人、伴郎、伴娘，甚至接待员都有各自的戏份，是一个非常古怪且新颖的仪式。

1995年，唐纳森碰巧读到狐假虎威的中国成语故事，激发起她将之改编为儿童文学的想法，《古飞乐》（The Gruffalo）一书应运而生。故事讲述一只老鼠在丛林中遇见狐狸、猫头鹰和蛇，每只动物都想吃了老鼠。老鼠杜撰出妖怪古飞乐，并声称与它相约，众动物因为害怕古飞乐，纷纷放老鼠一马。到最后，老鼠方惊觉古飞乐真的存在。它告诉古飞乐自己是全森林最凶猛的动物，它们于是寻回狐狸、猫头鹰和蛇，每只动物见到老鼠都惊慌不已，古飞乐深信老鼠的凶猛，并且落荒而逃。

这书为唐纳森带来多个奖项，全球翻译成40多个版本，总销量超过1千万本。

2001年，她获颁发英帝国员佐勋章（MBE），以表扬她在文学界作出的贡献。2019年元旦授勋名单，她再获英帝国司令勋章（CBE）。2026年英皇寿辰授勋名单，她再获英帝国女爵级司令勋章（DBE），成为女爵士。

Dame Julia Catherine Donaldson (née Shields; born 16 September 1948 London,England), is a British writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, Stick Man, and Superworm. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree. In January 2025, Donaldson became Britain's best-selling author, surpassing J.K. Rowling by some 600,000 sales.

Life and career

Childhood

Donaldson was born on 16 September 1948, and was brought up in Hampstead, London, with her younger sister. The family occupied a Victorian three-storey house near Hampstead Heath.

Both parents were musical. Poetry also featured strongly in Donaldson's early life; she was given The Book of a Thousand Poems by her father when she was five years old, and her grandmother introduced her to Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes. Donaldson attended New End Primary School and then Camden School for Girls. During her childhood and adolescence, she acted (understudying the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Old Vic where she made the acquaintance of a young Judi Dench and Tom Courtenay), sang with the Children's Opera Group, and learned the piano.

A skilled linguist, she studied French and German at school and later acquired Italian through a summer tutoring job with a family in Naples, so that by the age of 19, she had a proficient grasp of all three languages.

University life

Donaldson studied Drama and French at Bristol University (1967–1970), graduating with a 2:1 honours degree. During her time there she acted in departmental productions and learned the guitar. In 1968, she and her friend Maureen Purkis took part in the play I am not the Eiffel Tower with music composed by Colin Sell, a young pianist who was studying Spanish and Portuguese at Bristol and who later appeared in BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Sell's roommate Malcolm Donaldson, a medical student, came to see the show and subsequently teamed up with Sell, Donaldson and Purkis to sing in the pubs during Bristol University Rag Week in early 1969. Almost immediately after this Donaldson and Purkis were seconded to live in Paris for six months as part of their degree course where they sang and played their guitars to café audiences for money. Malcolm joined them in the summer and the trio performed various songs by the Beatles and from musicals including Hair.

1970s

The couple continued to busk in Europe during holidays, including in France and Italy, with Julia Donaldson writing "The French Busking Song" in French, and "The Spaghetti Song" in Italian. By 1971, Donaldson was working in London at Michael Joseph publishers as a secretary to Anthea Joseph but was also given considerable leeway as a junior editor. At weekends she and Malcolm took part in the Bristol Street Theatre, a group of mainly postgraduate students inspired by the late playwright David Illingworth. The group devised simple, unscripted plays which could be performed in the playgrounds of poor council estates and which recruited children from the audience to take over some of the roles. This was to have a lasting effect on Donaldson's interaction with children in her own shows as an established children's writer.