Christine Lehnen
novelist, researcher, journalist
Writing on, thinking about, and telling stories of how
the past shapes our present and the future
»What we remember matters. We turn to the past to conceive of who we are – and, more importantly, who we think we should be.«
Imagine Scythia’s fierce warrior women, Aeon, 2022
public
writing
In her research, fiction and public writing, Christine spotlights how the past shapes what we think of as normal in the present and what we can envision for our future.
Christine regularly communicates cutting-edge humanities research to the public. She contributes on history, archaeology, literature, feminism and culture to DW.com and has written for Aeon, Psyche, Antigone, The Wire India, New Lines Magazine and Cultural Practice Magazine. Christine is the proud founder of the public research magazine 42 .
Heroic Women
Would you like to hear about heroic women from history and how they can inspire us to be braver and bolder today? Then sign up to my monthly newsletter Heroic Women!
research
Christine is researching Western memory cultures and the contemporary historical novel at the University of Manchester.
Her research has been published in Alluvium, Nomos and the Journal of Literary Theory. She will be contributing to a collection on audiovisual representations of ancient Amazons in contemporary media on submission with Bloomsbury Academic (2025).
Board member of the Historical Fictions Research Network and member of the Memory Studies Association. Member of the editorial board of The Journal of Historical Fictions.
novels
Christine’s novels are published by Penguin Random House and Harper Collins.
Her fantasy fiction has been awarded the Lovelybooks Reader Award (Das Lied der Nacht) and nominated for the RPG Fantasy Award (Palace of Glass).
She is director and founder of the Novel Writing Workshop at the University of Bonn which has seen numerous students go on to receive agency representation and close book deals with both major and independent publishers.
Christine Lehnen is represented by Thérèse Coen at Susanna Lea Associates in London.
Palace of Glass – Die Wächterin von C E Bernard 
Palace of Silk- Die Verräterin von C E Bernard 
Palace of Fire – Die Kriegerin von C E Bernard 
Cover of Palace of Blood by C E Bernard 
The Woman at No 13 by C K Williams 
Flowers for the Dead by C K Williams 
Das Lied der Nacht by C E Bernard 
Das Flüstern des Zwielichts by C E Bernard 
Der Klang des Feuers by C E Bernard 
Die Schneekönigin by C E Bernard
As C K Williams, she writes suspense fiction under a pen name honouring her grandfathers, Wilhelm Lehnen and Ferdinand Surmann.
events
Christine Lehnen will be presenting a paper on conservatism in contemporary feminist historical fiction at the Historical Fictions Research Network Annual Conference in February 2023.
She will be presenting on contemporary retellings of Greek myth as female and feminine trauma responses at the CA Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge in April 2023.
Christine will teach a workshop on writing historial women as well as deliver a paper on feminist memory cultures at the Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association at the University of Newcastle in July 2023.
fun
In her spare time, Christine will most likely be on a train, plane, or bycicle. You might also find her sitting on her sofa, laughing her head off at each and every episode of Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.
She is a lover of the cinema, the theatre, and a seasoned traveller. Her current literary obsessions is Elizabeth Strout. The last excellent book she read was Lucy Worsley’s wonderful biography of one of the most impressive novelists of all times, Agatha Christie.
Born in the Ruhr Valley in Western Germany, she has since lived in the United States, Australia, Canada and Paris and is now based in Bonn and Manchester, splitting her time between the UK and Germany.
Get in touch
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© Christine Lehnen 2023