Nicholas Shakespeare is the author of
The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the
Somerset Maugham Award,
The High Flyer, for which he was nominated one of
Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 1993, and
The Dancer Upstairs, chosen by the American Library Association as the Best Novel of 1997.
He spent eight years researching
Bruce Chatwin: A Biography (Doubleday, 2000, ISBN 0-385-49829-2), and in this brilliant work on the enigmatic British
author and
adventurer, Shakespeare demonstates a masterful sense of style, structure, and empathy.
"An epic work of immense satisfaction. In awe-inspiring detail and with a rounding-out of all the other characters, Shakespeare takes us successively through the milieux of Chatwin's life...and drenches all those worlds in their emotional, human implications."
—Duncan Fallowell,
The Times
"Biographies don't come any better than this."
—Justin Wintle,
Financial Times