Townsend, Sue (Susan) (1946– )

English humorous novelist and playwright. She is the author of the best-selling The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 133/4 (1982; adapted for the stage in 1985) and later sequels. Other novels include Rebuilding Coventry (1985), The Queen and I (1992), about a dethroned royal family in a republican Britain (also adapted for the stage, 1994), the haunting tale Ghost Children (1997), and Number Ten (2002).

In 1999 she published Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (in which he was aged 303/4).