Rose Tremain was born Rosemary Jane Thomson on August 2, 1943 in London and attended Crofton Grange School from 1954 to 1961; the Sorbonne from 1961—1962; and graduated from the University of East Anglia in 1965 where she then taught creative writing from 1988 to 1995.

She married Jon Tremain in 1971 and they had one daughter, Eleanor, born in 1972, who became an actress. The marriage lasted about five years. Her second marriage, to theatre director Jonathan Dudley, in 1982, lasted about nine years; and she has been with Richard Holmes since 1992. She lives in East Anglia.

Her influences include William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1967 novel, 100 Years of Solitude and the magical realism style.

Her novel Music and Silence won the best novel in the 1999 Whitbread Awards, building on the recognition she received in the award of the 1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year for her novel Restoration, and the 1992 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Sacred Country. Tremain also won the Prix Femina Étranger in 1994 for Sacred Country. She is an historical novelist who approaches her subjects "from unexpected angles, concentrating her attention on unglamorous outsiders." Costume dramatist | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books

Tremain has judged the Booker prize twice, first in 1988 and again in 2000. In June 2008 she won the Orange Prize for fiction, awarded to the best novel of the year written in English by a woman, for The Road Home, the story of an Eastern European immigrant in the UK. Tremain has also written for radio.

In 2009, she donated the short story The Jester of Astapovo to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Earth' collection.

Novels and film

• Sadler's Birthday (1976), ISBN 0-356-08387-X
• Letter to Sister Benedicta (1978), ISBN 0-354-04353-6
• The Cupboard (1981), ISBN 0-354-04769-8
• Journey to the Volcano (1985), ISBN 0-241-11651-1
• The Swimming Pool Season (1985), ISBN 0-241-11496-9
• Restoration (1989), ISBN 0-241-12695-9 (and the screenplay for the 1996 film)
• Sacred Country (1992), ISBN 1-85619-118-4
• The Way I Found Her (1997), ISBN 1-85619-409-4
• Music and Silence (1999), ISBN 1-86056-027-X
• The Colour (2003), ISBN 0-7011-7296-7
• The Road Home (2008), ISBN 9780099478461
• Trespass (2010 W.W. Norton)

Short stories and collections

• The Colonel's Daughter and other stories 1983
• The Garden of the Villa Mollini and other stories 1987
• Evangelista's Fan and other stories 1994
• The Darkness of Wallis Simpson 2006
• "The Jester of Astapovo" in Ox-Tales: Earth 2009

For children

• Journey to the Volcano 1985