- Lawrence Sail
- Giles St Aubyn LVO
- William St Clair FBA
- Norman St John-Stevas (Lord St John of Fawsley)
- Fiona Sampson
- J.J. Scarisbrick FRHistS
- Ann Schlee
- Michael Schmidt
- The Rev Professor M.A. Screech FBA
- Roger Scruton FBA
- Peter Scupham
- Simon Sebag-Montefiore
- Elisa Segrave
- Richard Sennett
- Vikram Seth CBE
- Miranda Seymour
- Sir Peter Shaffer CBE
- Nicholas Shakespeare
- Kamila Shamsie
- Jo Shapcott
- Norman Sherry
- Elaine Showalter
- Posy Simmonds MBE
- Helen Simpson
- Andrew Sinclair
- Clive Sinclair
- Iain Sinclair
- Robert Skidelsky (Lord Skidelsky of Tilton FBA FRHistS)
- Ali Smith
- Godfrey Smith
- Lacey Baldwin Smith FRHistS
- Zadie Smith
- Mary Soames (Baroness Soames LG)
- Ahdaf Soueif
- Frances Spalding CBE
- Francis Spufford
- Hilary Spurling CBE
- John Spurling
- Tom Stacey
- Jon Stallworthy FBA
- Martin Stannard
- Edward St Aubyn
- C.K. Stead ONZ CBE
- George Steiner FBA
- Rory Stewart OBE MP
- Stanley Stewart
- Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE C Lit
- Sir Roy Strong FSA
- Kate Summerscale
- Virginia Surtees
- John Sutherland
- Graham Swift
- George Szirtes
Jennifer Johnston – Year of election 2009
Jennifer Johnston is an Irish writer – Ireland, she has said, is her
“main theme” – and the author of more than a dozen novels. The daughter
of a writer and an actress, she only started writing at the age of 35.
“I just woke up one morning,” she said, “and thought, ‘I must do
something with my life.’ ” Her first novel, The Captains and the Kings, published in 1972, won the Author's Club First Novel Award, and The Old Jest
(1979) took the Whitbread Novel Award. Five years ago Roddy Doyle
caused outrage at a Joyce gathering in New York when he said that Ulysses needed a good editor and that James Joyce was not the best Irish writer – that title was Jennifer Johnston's.
“She has created a world of her own,” Derek Mahon has written. “Of such material is the finest literature made.”