Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 to middle class parents in Kyoto, the cultural capital of Japan. Some of Murakami’s most notable works include The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995) which won the Yomiuri Literary Award and Kafka on the Shore (2002) which received a World Fantasy Award for its English translation in 2006. Murakami has also received a Hans Christian Anderson Award (2016) and an America Award in Literature (2018) for lifetime achievement in writing.
Marian Keyes is an Irish author born in 1963, who grew up in and around Dublin as part of a large family. Keyes is the British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022, recognised for her ‘expert storytelling, incredible warmth of heart, and significant contributions to the publishing industry over three decades of writing’.
Philippa Gregory is our Author of the Month for June. Gregory was chosen to tie in with the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.
Robert Harris studied English at Cambridge University before joining the BBC as a television correspondent. His career in the media included writing as a columnist for the London Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph and Political Editor of The Observer before he became a full-time writer. Since his debut novel Fatherland which was published in 1992,… Continue reading Robert Harris
Graham Greene, was an English novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist whose novels treat life’s moral ambiguities in the context of contemporary political settings.
American-English author Tracy Chevalier was able to become a full-time writer after her second novel, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, became a best-seller and the inspiration for the film of the same name starring Scarlett Johanssen and Colin Firth. She credits her time working as reference book editor for the skills of research, accuracy… Continue reading Tracy Chevalier
Through her novels, essay collections and poems, Barbara Kingsolver an ecologist and biologist by training, writer and political activist by inclination, combines grand and sometimes controversial themes with the gift of a true storyteller. Her best-known novels concern the endurance of people living in often inhospitable environments and the beauty to be found even in… Continue reading Barbara Kingsolver
James Baldwin was a black writer before the Civil Rights movement; a gay writer in homophobic mid-century America; a passionate maverick stylist who was swept into the destructive arena of politics. In fiction, he drew heavily on his own self and was prepared to explore difficult truths about his life. He understood guilt and rage… Continue reading James Baldwin
Our September Author of the Month, is Anne Tyler - the quiet American who has published 20 novels over the last 50 years, that subtly chronicle the ‘stuff of family life’ – love, disappointments, estranged children, loss. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons (1988), a portrait of a marriage ageing and warping, while… Continue reading Author of the Month – Anne Tyler
Ian McEwan’s novels are as diverse as his upbringing. Born in Hampshire in 1948, his childhood was a transient one, spent moving between east Asia, Germany and north Africa, following his father’s military postings. His similarly wide-roaming career has positioned him as one of Britain’s foremost literary voices.
