Tom Holland is a British writer of medieval and classical history. His book Rubicon: the Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic was awarded the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He has served as Chair of the Management Committee and on the committee of the Classical Association.
Michael Holroyd, CBE, CLit is an English biographer and served as Chair of the Management Committee from 1973 to 1983, as well as president of the RSL from 2003 to 2008. In 1985 he served three years as president of the English branch of PEN and in 2006 was awarded the Golden PEN Award. He has…
William Horwood has written over twenty novels including his memoir, The Boy with No Shoes, and sequels to The Wind in the Willows series. He served on the Management Committee from 2013 to 2016.
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight works of fiction have earned him many awards and honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature (2017) and the Booker Prize (1989). His work has been translated into over fifty languages. The Remains of…
Steve Jones, FRS is a geneticist, regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph and award-winning author of books on the subject of evolution, such as The Language of the Genes. In 1996 he was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize, and in 2011 became President of The Association for Science Education.
Mark Le Fanu qualified as a solicitor after a short career in the Navy and served on the SoA’s staff as General Secretary from 1982 to 2011.
Penelope Lively, DBE, FRSL has written fiction for both children and adults. She won the Booker Prize with her novel Moon Tiger and the Carnegie Medal with The Ghost of Thomas Kempe. She has also been shortlisted for the Costa Prize and has won the Whitbread Award. She is a Fellow of the RSL, served for six years on…
Ian McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a novelist and screenwriter whose work has been awarded the SoA’s Somerset Maugham Award, Whitbread Novel Award and been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize six times. In 1998 he won the Booker prize for his novel Amsterdam. In 2000 he was appointed CBE.
Roger McGough, CBE, FRSL is a poet, broadcaster, children’s author and playwright, winning critical acclaim for his 1967 anthology The Mersey Sound. He has won the SoA’s Cholmondeley Award and was appointed OBE in 1997 and CBE in 2004. He presents BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please. He is a Fellow of the RSL and President of the Poetry…
Andrew Motion FRSL is a poet, novelist and biographer, and co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive. He was the UK’s Poet Laureate between 1999 and 2009, and in 2009 was knighted for his services to poetry. He has been President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and Chair of the Booker Prize. He now…
Ben Okri is a poet, novelist, and playwright. He has published many books including The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize in 1991, The Age of Magic, Dangerous Love, In Arcadia, and Astonishing the Gods. He has published ten novels, three books of short stories, two collections of essays, and three volumes of poems, the latest being Wild. His works…
Sir Ian Rankin, OBE, DL, FRSE is a crime writer whose Inspector Rebus novels have been adapted as a television series. He has won many awards for his writing including the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger Award, Specsavers National Book Award for Outstanding Achievement and Edgar Award for best novel. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of…
