Patrick McGuinness was born in Tunisia, of Belgian and Newcastle Irish parents. His books include The Last Hundred Days (2011), about the fall of the Ceausescu régime in Romanian, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the Writers’ Guild Award for Fiction and the Wales Book fo the Year. His memoir about growing up in post-industrial Belgium, Other People’s Countries, appeared in 2014 and won the Duff Cooper Prize. His new novel is Throw me to the Wolves (2019). He is also the author of two books of poems, Jilted City (Carcanet, 2010) and The Canals of Mars (2004), and an academic and translator. He lives in Caernarfon and works in Oxford.