Gerda Charles was the pseudonym of Edna Lipson, an Anglo-Jewish writer born in Liverpool in 1914. Educated in Liverpool schools until the age of 15, she then moved to London with her widowed mother, where they ran a boarding house. She studied further in evening classes at London colleges. Her first novel, The True Voice was published in 1959. A Slanting Light won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1963 and The Destiny Waltz won the Whitbread award for 1971. In 1991 Gerda Charles described her novels as being about "the job of maintaining sanity, dignity and order" in the modern community. She also worked as a journalist and reviewer for papers including the New Statesman, Daily Telegraph, New York Times and Jewish Chronicle and in 1963 edited the anthology Modern Jewish Stories. She died on November 4 1996.