Piers Paul Read
PIERS PAUL READ, the third son of the poet and art critic Sir Herbert Read, was born in 1941, raised in North Yorkshire, and educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College. After reading History at Cambridge University, he spent two years in Germany, and, on his return to London, worked as a sub-editor on The Times Literary Supplement. His first novel, Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx, published in 1966, was described by The Times as `one of the most arresting British novels to have appeared in recent years’: subsequent novels have won the Hawthornden Prize and the Geoffrey Faber, Somerset Maugham and James Tait Black Awards. Two of his novels, A Married Man and The Free Frenchman have been adapted for television and a third, Monk Dawson, as a feature film.
In 1974 Read wrote his first work of reportage, Alive. The Story of the Andes Survivors which has since sold five million copies world-wide. A film of Alive was made in 1992, directed by Frank Marshall and starring Ethan Hawke. Other works of non-fiction include an account of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, a history of the crusading military order, The Templars and most recently Alec Guinness. The Authorised Biography. Piers Paul Read is a Fellow and Member of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature; and a member of the Council of the Society of Authors. He lives in London.
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