Chloë Rayban is the pseudonym of British writer Carolyn Bear who is best known for her YA novels. Under her Rayban pseudonym, Bear has gained popularity among teens for her series featuring sixteen-year-old Justine Duval.
"I started writing books for children because I had a daughter who didn't like reading. A life without books seemed to me the ultimate deprivation, so I set about writing something I thought would appeal to her. My second daughter then got in on the act. As teenagers, they told me precisely what they wanted—books that were funny, fast-paced, and contemporary. So I came up with the Justine books, for which they, inadvertently, provided most of the source material. Rather ruefully, they admitted they enjoyed the books," says Rayban.
Over the past twenty-five years, Chloë’s books have been published by Random House, Harper Collins, Hodder Headline, and Bloomsbury. They have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, and Icelandic.
Her novel Love In Cyberia (1996) was shortlisted for both The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal and Virtual Sexual Reality (1994) was runner-up for The Guardian Award and was made into the film Virtual Sexuality by Columbia Tristar.
Under her real name — Carolyn Bear — OUP publishes her books for younger children, the most popular being the Scrapman series, which sells worldwide, most recently in China. Currently, she also writes both fiction and non-fiction for adults.
Formerly an advertising copywriter, Chloë Rayban now writes full-time and divides her time between England and France.
Photo credit: chloerayban.com
