User:Faithfulaphrodite/Rachel Holmes

Rachel Holmes is a writer, critic, broadcaster and programmer. Best known for her The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Times of Saartjie Baartman published by Bloomsbury in 2007, Holmes has also written Scanty Particulars, the biography of Dr. James Barry. A former academic at University of London, Queen Mary, and tenured at the University of Sussex, Holmes left her post in 1998 to join the launch team of Amazon.co.uk as the web manager before becoming a full-time writer. She is currently writing a life of Eleanor Marx, Karl Marx youngest daughter. Holmes is Head of Literature and the Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and runs the annual London Literature Festival and Poetry International.

She is a founder and patron of FOTAC UK, which supports the Treatment Action Campaign in the fight for HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and Chair of Africa Beyond, celebrating African artists in the UK.

She has judged several literary prizes, including the Whitbread Awards and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and has appeared on Any Questions and Newsnight Review. Holmes is a frequent columnist and reviewer and is Secretary of Friends of TAC, international fund-raising and lobby group for the Treatment Action Campaign, the South African HIV/AIDS movement.