Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He then moved to Italy, where he and his family lived for more than thirty years while he taught at the British International School in Rome. He and his wife currently divide their time between Italy and Hastings. Simon Mawer is the author of several novels including the Man Booker shortlisted The Glass Room, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Tightrope and Prague Spring.

** 'THE GLASS ROOM is a fiction of many remarkable qualities . . . Mawer's control of his themes of language, desire, memory and the power of place is extraordinary - as haunting and mysterious as the effect of sunlight on the wall of golden onyx that survives all the convulsions by which his characters are engulfed

Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He then moved to Italy, where he and his family lived for more than thirty years while he taught at the British International School in Rome. He and his wife currently divide their time between Italy and Hastings. Simon Mawer is the author of several novels including the Man Booker shortlisted The Glass Room, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Tightrope and Prague Spring.

** 'THE GLASS ROOM is a fiction of many remarkable qualities . . . Mawer's control of his themes of language, desire, memory and the power of place is extraordinary - as haunting and mysterious as the effect of sunlight on the wall of golden onyx that survives all the convulsions by which his characters are engulfed

Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He then moved to Italy, where he and his family lived for more than thirty years while he taught at the British International School in Rome. He and his wife currently divide their time between Italy and Hastings. Simon Mawer is the author of several novels including the Man Booker shortlisted The Glass Room, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Tightrope and Prague Spring.

** 'THE GLASS ROOM is a fiction of many remarkable qualities . . . Mawer's control of his themes of language, desire, memory and the power of place is extraordinary - as haunting and mysterious as the effect of sunlight on the wall of golden onyx that survives all the convulsions by which his characters are engulfed