Biography

Susan Lund was born in Yorkshire in 1944. Her work was first broadcast by the BBC in 1962 on The Northern Drift, and her first radio play, Here Comes A Chopper, appeared in 1965, produced by Alfred Bradley.

Her first novel, The Red Army, was published in 1964 by Anthony Blond; followed by The Cannibal (Gollancz) and Red-Hot Poker (Davis-Poynter).  

Articles on Beethoven, first published in the academic press, appear in updated form in the introduction to her novel about the composer, Raptus. This book received international acclaim & her discoveries about the composer’s life are now generally accepted. Beethoven And The Catholic Brentanos: The story behind Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis appeared in 2007.

Many of her novels have been adapted by her for radio, film & stage. Her subjects include the Angolan civil war in Fado; and The Streets of London, which deals with schizophrenia. Race To Win was one of the first 9/11 novels to be written in the UK.  

Her latest novel, Passion: ‘an extraordinary story, beautifully told.’

Passion by Susan Lund
Booksurge (ISBN-13: 978-1439260531)
$12.99

Against the background of the Napoleonic wars, Beethoven’s illegitimate son by his Immortal Beloved is brought up in Frankfurt by her husband whilst Beethoven in Vienna adopts his late brother’s child. Beethoven writes the Missa Solemnis to awaken his son’s spiritual awareness after the four-year old boy is stricken with illness. Reader reactions: ‘Powerful & moving.’ ‘Enjoyable & informative… a touching love story.’ ‘The truth about Beethoven.’  ‘An extraordinary story, beautifully told.’

Review of Passion screenplay:  
‘Crisp, fast-moving & dramatic, with a story worthy of wide circulation’
- Maynard Solomon, author of Beethoven, Beethoven Essays & Late Beethoven

Race To Win by Susan Lund
Booksurge (ISBN 1-4196-6136-1 ISBN-13:  978-1419661365)
£6.34 

Race To Win approaches 9/11 and the Iraq war from the standpoint of a man whose fiancée & unborn child were killed in a mugging, who now finds himself unexpectedly married, to a near-stranger by whom he has a child. Its theme is redemption, forgiveness, or vengeance, with world events & terrorist attacks seen through the eyes of a man who himself has been violently stripped of all he held dear.

Beethoven And The Catholic Brentanos: The Story Behind Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis by Susan Lund
Booksurge (ISBN:  1-4196-8144-3 ISBN-13:  978-1419681448)
£10.32
Also on sale at Foyle’s in the Royal Festival Hall.
 
This short book, which began as an academic article, contains the author’s latest original research on the composer, with previously unpublished material provided by present-day members of the Brentano family.  

‘It really doesn’t matter with whom Beethoven slept nor whom Beethoven fathered unless it affects the music. I maintain that it does.’ – Quoted by Philip Weiss, New York Times,  November 29th 1998.

As with all her work on Beethoven, the aim is to provide the truth rather than the myth - & to send the reader back to the music with ever more keenness & discernment.

Raptus by Susan Lund
A novel about Beethoven, based on the source material. Annotated, with introductory articles
Melstamps (Cambs) ISBN:  0 9525676 0 1

Published in 1995, this self-published book is now out-of-print, but copies are available from Amazon
 

The self-contained final part of a four-volume novel about Beethoven, Raptus, contains the author’s own discovery that Beethoven was the father of Karl Josef, the youngest child of his Immortal Beloved, Antonie Brentano. Revised versions of her previously-published articles ‘Beethoven: a True “Fleshly Father”?’ and ‘If One Has Only One Son’ also appear in this volume, together with the first ever publication of the portrait of Karl Josef Brentano, Beethoven’s son.
This self-published book became the subject of a Reuters’ report, a Times leader, a page in the Telegraph. It received international acclaim.