Hilary Spurling is the author of The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master which won the Whitbread Book of the Year and the Los Angeles Times biography prize in 2005. Her biography of Ivy Compton-Burnett won the Heinemann and Duff Cooper prizes and Burying the Bones was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2010. She has also written lives of Paul Scott, La Grande Thérèse (Profile) and Sonia Orwell. She has been theatre critic and literary editor of the Spectator, and a lead book reviewer for the Observer and Telegraph. She founded the Royal Literary Fund’s Fellowship Scheme for writers, and lives in London.

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