Charlotte Raven
Charlotte Raven (September 1969 – January 2025) was a British author and journalist.
Early life and career
[edit]Born in Streatham in September 1969,[1][2] Raven studied English at the University of Manchester. As a Labour Club activist there in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was part of a successful campaign to oust then student union communications officer Derek Draper, though she subsequently had a four-year relationship with him.[3] She was University of Manchester Students' Union Women's Officer in 1990–91 and presided over an election in which future Labour MP Liam Byrne failed to be elected as the Union's Welfare Officer. She later studied at the University of Sussex.
Raven was a contributor to the Modern Review, and the editor of the relaunched version in 1997. There she met Julie Burchill, with whom she had an affair in 1995: the two are pictured in the National Portrait Gallery. Her columns appeared frequently in The Guardian and New Statesman.
In 2001, Raven was accused of regional racism after launching an attack on Denise Fergus, the mother of child murder victim James Bulger, and the people of Liverpool in general, in a Guardian article on the James Bulger case.[4][5] The article generated a high level of complaints. In response, Guardian readers' editor Ian Mayes concluded that the article should not have been published.[6]
In April 2013, it was announced that the feminist magazine Spare Rib would relaunch with Raven as the editor.[7] It was subsequently announced that while a magazine and website were to be launched, it would now have a different name.[8]
Personal life and death
[edit]Raven and her husband, the film maker Tom Sheahan, had a daughter, Anna, born in 2004[9] and a son, John, who was born in 2009.[10]
In January 2010, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with Huntington's disease, an incurable hereditary disease, in January 2006 and had been contemplating suicide, an option she rejected after visiting a clinic in an area of Venezuela with a very high incidence of Huntington's disease.[11] In 2019, she became patient 1 on the Roche Gen-Peak trial of a huntingtin protein-lowering drug tominersen.[12] In 2021, she published a memoir, Patient 1, with her doctor Edward Wild on the experience of coming to terms with the diagnosis, the drug trial and the living with the illness as it affected her mind and body.[13] Raven was shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize for the book.[14]
Raven died at the age of 55 in January 2025.[15]
Recognition
[edit]Raven was recognised as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013.[16]
References
[edit]- ^ Llewellyn Smith, Julia (27 May 2013). "Charlotte Raven on resurrecting the feminist bible Spare Rib". The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ "Charlotte RAVEN personal appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ Derek Draper, Charlotte Raven & Joanne Mallabar (4 October 1998). "How we met". The Independent. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2008.
- ^ Raven, Charlotte (26 June 2001). "Why the Bulger mourning marathon sickens me". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "Organization of News Ombudsmen: City limits…". Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
- ^ "City limits". TheGuardian.com. 30 June 2001.
- ^ Ben Dowell (25 April 2013). "Spare Rib magazine to be relaunched by Charlotte Raven". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
- ^ Raven, Charlotte (24 June 2013). "My 'wounding' battle with Spare Rib founders over feminism 2.0". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
- ^ Charlotte Rave (1 July 2006). "How my generation lost the plot". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 June 2008.
- ^ "Living with Huntington's disease: 'For our family, the end of days is always close at hand'". The Guardian. 16 October 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ Charlotte Raven (16 January 2010). "Charlotte Raven: Should I take my own life?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
- ^ Louise Carpenter (30 October 2021). "Charlotte Raven: Huntington's disease is 'a burden that is almost impossible to bear'". The Times. London. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ "Charlotte Raven – Penguin Books".
- ^ "RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2022 - Shortlist Announced". Royal Society of Literature. 17 May 2022. Archived from the original on 18 February 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
- ^ Addley, Esther (22 January 2025). "Charlotte Raven, 'exhilarating', trail-blazing journalist, dies aged 55". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ "100 Women: Who took part?". BBC News. 20 October 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
External links
[edit]- Charlotte Raven columns and reviews from The Guardian and The Observer
- Articles by Charlotte Raven from New Statesman
- Portrait of Raven (right) and Julie Burchill at the website of the National Portrait Gallery
- Charlotte Raven at IMDb