Simon Mawer is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel The Glass Room (Other Press), which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His previous novels include The Fall (winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize), The Gospel of Judas, and Mendel’s Dwarf (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize). English by birth, he has made Italy his home for more than thirty years. www.simonmawer.com