Michel Faber

Novelist and short-story writer Michel Faber was born in Holland. He moved with his family to Australia in 1967 and has lived in Scotland since 1992. His short story 'Fish' won the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition in 1996 and is included in his first collection of short stories, Some Rain Must Fall and Other Stories (1998), winner of the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award. His first novel, Under the Skin (2000), was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and he has also won the Neil Gunn Prize and an Ian St James Award. Other fiction includes The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (1999), a novella, and The Courage Consort (2002), the story of an a cappella singing group. The Crimson Petal and the White (2002), is set in Victorian England and tells the story of Sugar, a 19-year-old prostitute. His collection of stories, The Apple (2006) continues the tale of some of the characters from The Crimson Petal and the White. His most recent books are Vanilla Bright Like Eminem (2007), a further short story collection, and The Fire Gospel (2008), a novel.