Jean Findlay has a lifetime’s experience in literature as a playwright, journalist, author and – for the last twelve years – as an independent publisher at Scotland Street Press in Edinburgh. Her first book was published by Chatto and Windus and Vintage in London and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in New York. The book was shortlisted for a Lamda Award in New York in 2016. She has written two historical novels set at the turn of the 16th/17th century in Edinburgh, London and Europe. Published 2022 and 2026.
She has spoken at the Edinburgh Book Festival, the Jaipur Book Festival in India, The Centre for Fiction in New York, the Boston Atheneum, The Savile Club in London, Bregenz in Austria, Wigton Book Festival, New York University Graduate Centre, The Saltire Society and more. She has also been invited by the Boni Institute in New York to talk on CK Scott Moncrieff and on setting up a new publishing house. Seen here in Edinburgh, Scotland UK 02/09/2026
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Jean Findlay was born in Edinburgh. She studied Law and French at Edinburgh University and Theatre under Tadeusz Kantor in Cracow, Poland. She co-founded an award winning theatre company and wrote and produced plays which toured to London, Berlin, Bonn, Rotterdam, Dublin, Glasgow and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. She wrote drama and book reviews for the Scotsman, and has written for the Independent, Time Out, the Guardian and Performance magazine. For work in progress on Chasing Lost Time she won a Hyam Wingate Award, an Authors Foundation Award and was shortlisted for the Alistair Horne Fellowship at Oxford University. She lives in Scotland with her husband; together they have six children. She is the great-great-niece of CK Scott Moncrieff.
Interview on Public Radio International