Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya and was educated there, in England and at Trinity College, Dublin. He served in the Grenadier Guards and worked as a journalist in London before becoming a fulltime writer.

A former literary critic for the Financial Times, he has written more than 20 books, both fiction and non-fiction, and is translated into many languages. He was long-listed for the inaugural Sunday Times £30,000 award, the biggest short story prize in the world. He lives in Cambridge.