Madeleine is currently working on a non fiction title for Granta, Seaside, England's Love Affair. Tracing the history of one of England's most distinctive inventions, she will travel from Scarborough to Morecombe over 2020 and 2021 to portray the edges of a troubled nation: exploring the places where the nation comes to play, recuperate and retire.

She is also working on a new novel set in North Yorkshire.

For twenty five years, Madeleine was a journalist and Associate Editor on the Guardian and held a number of positions including columnist 1999-2012. She wrote on a wide range of subjects including politics, social affairs, faith and global development.

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She was made a Visiting Professor at the LSE's International Inequalities Institute in 2021. She has received a number of awards and prizes including an honorary fellowship from Cardiff University in 2013, a visiting fellowship at Manchester University (2016-19). Love of Country was shortlisted for the Wainright and the Saltire Prizes 2017, and she won the Portico Prize for The Plot in 2010 which was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.Her first novel, Island Song, won the Waverton Good Read Award in 2020. She was awarded a Lambeth MA degree in 2006, The Race in the Media award in 2005 and the Imam wa Amal Special Award in 2002. She has won several One World Media awards for her journalism on global justice.

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She was born in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, one of five children of artist parents. She studied history at Corpus Christi, Cambridge and won a scholarship to Harvard. She now lives near Stroud.