Born on the south coast of England in 1955, Rupert Thomson was educated at Christ’s Hospital School. At the age of seventeen he won a scholarship to Cambridge University where he studied Medieval History and Political Thought. In his twenties, he spent four years working as a copywriter in London, but in 1982 he moved to Italy where he started work on a novel. Dreams of Leaving was published in 1987, and was hailed in The Times as ‘extraordinarily elegant, evocative and funny’, while the New Statesman wrote: ‘When someone writes as well as Thomson does, it makes you wonder why other people bother.’ Since then, he has published seven more highly acclaimed novels, of which Air and Fire, The Insult and Death of a Murderer have been shortlisted for awards including the Costa. Death of a Murderer was also been shortlisted by World Book Day for The Book to Talk About 2008.
Though his books consistently defy categorisation, the San Francisco Chronicle came closer than most when it described him as a ‘twisted British fabulist’. During the past twenty years he has lived in many cities, including London, Berlin, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Rome. He currently lives in Barcelona.
Courtesy of Bloomsbury.