Louis de Bernières, Esq

Career: novelist, poet and musician; former jobs incl teacher, landscape gardener, car mechanic and bookshop asst; named Granta Best of Young British Novelists list 1993, Author of the Year British Book Awards 1997

Books and Publications: as Louis de Bernières: The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (1990, Best First Book Eurasia Region Cwlth Writers' Prize 1991), Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (1991, Best Book Eurasia Region Cwlth Writers' Prize 1992), The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (1992), Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994, shortlisted Book of the Year Sunday Express 1994, Best Book Cwlth Writers' Prize 1995, stage adaptation 1999, film adaptation 2001), Labels (1997), The Book of Job (introduction, 1998), Red Dog (2001), Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World (radio play, 2001, broadcast BBC Radio 4 1999), Birds Without Wings (2004, shortlisted Whitbread Novel Award 2004), A Partisan's Daughter (2008, shortlisted Costa Prize), Notwithstanding (2009); regular contrib of short stories to newspapers and magazines