Michele Roberts was born in 1949 to French and English parents. She has written fifteen highly acclaimed novels, including Daughters of the House, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and the critically acclaimed memoir Negative Capability: A Diary of Surviving.She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of EastAnglia, a Chevalier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. As a Republican, she turned down an OBE. She is also the author of two bestselling cookbooks.

Advance praise:'Playful, thoughtful, never judgmental: quietly, mellowly open-minded but with her own sense of self. Michele is the kind of person you'd want to bump into on the bus; and this is the kind of book you'd want to have until you do. Such good company.' - Magnus Rena, literary critic and booksellerOn Negative Capability: A Diary of Surviving:'[A] candid, absorbing journal of her day-to-day life and search for inner peace.' - Rachel Cooke, Guardian'Raw and glittering ... [Michele Roberts] writes with such lyrical precision, such an eye for the luscious detail, that her journey from despair to something like hope feels for us like being a guest at a stupendous banquet ... the real healing in this book seems to lie in Roberts's gift for turning the stuff of the everyday into something so mesmerising that it lifts you into another realm.' - Christina Patterson, The Sunday Times'She is a good companion: generous enough to be likeable, yet prickly enough to be interesting, and her descriptions of the food she eats along the way are mouthwatering.' - Dani Garavelli, Big IssueOn Cut Out:'A sumptuously written and life-affirming examination of what it is to be an artist, a woman, a feminist ... Every page flickers and glows with colour.' - Amanda Craig, Literary Review'This often lyrical and always atmospheric novel ... offers deep delights. It's a book to be read slowly, taking time to pause, remember, picture and dream.' - Alan Massie, Scotsman