Susannah Clapp (born 1949) is a British writer, who has been the theatre critic of The Observer since 1997 and is a contributor to the BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves programme.[1]
Clapp read English at the University of Bristol, where one of her teachers was Christopher Ricks.[citation needed]
An editor and reader at the publisher Jonathan Cape early in her career, Clapp was a founder of the London Review of Books, where she was assistant editor.[2] She is the author of books about Bruce Chatwin and Angela Carter, and is the literary executor of the estates of both authors.[3]
In December 2013, after 14 years' involvement, Clapp resigned from the judging panel of the Evening Standard Theatre Awards following her objection to changes in the voting method.[4] Allegedly, vote rigging occurred caused by the use of a secret ballot, rather than the judges making their case to each other as had been the previous practice.[5]