2010 Presenters
Simon Mawer
Simon Mawer is the author of two books of non-fiction and eight novels.
His first novel, Chimera, winner of the McKitterick Prize, was published in 1989, and is partly set in Italy, where he has lived since the 1970s. This was followed by the novels The Bitter Cross and A Jealous God.
His third novel, Mendel's Dwarf, based on the life of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, and the modern day experiences of his great-great-great nephew, a molecular biologist, was shortlisted for the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was followed up by the literary thriller, The Gospel of Judas, and The Fall, which was named a 2003 New York Times Notable Book and won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountaineering Literature.
Simon Mawer's latest novels are Swimming to Ithaca, partly inspired by his childhood on Cyprus, and The Glass Room, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize, the Walter Scott Prize, and the Wingate Prize. The Glass Room has been called “a thing of extraordinary beauty and symmetry… a rare thing: popular historical fiction with integrity” by The Guardian.
Mawer holds a degree in zoology from Oxford University.
LINKS:
Contemporary Writers' biography of Mawer
Article on Czech history in The Glass Room
Interview with Mawer on The Glass Room
Review of The Glass Room in The Guardian
Review of The Glass Room in The Washington Post
