Elspeth Barker was born in Edinburgh in 1940. In her career as a novelist and journalist, she wrote for the Independent, Observer, Sunday Times, London Review of Books and many others. Between the early 1980s and early 1990s, Elspeth taught Latin at what she describes as a naughty girls’ school on the Norfolk coast. She wrote and produced plays in Latin with her pupils. From 1992 to 2010 she worked as a tutor and lecturer in Creative Writing at the Norwich School of Art and Design. She published her first novel, O CALEDONIA, at the age of 51. O CALEDONIA was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.

Praise for Elspeth Barker:

‘A wholly original voice’ – The Independent

‘One of Scotland’s principal writers’ – The Financial Times