Alex Preston was born in 1979 and lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was an international bestseller, won the Spear’s and Edinburgh first book awards and was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize. Preston writes and reviews for GQ, the Observer and the New Statesman and appears regularly on BBC television and radio. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.