Aida Edemariam, whose father is Ethiopian and mother Canadian, grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She studied English literature at Oxford and the University of Toronto, and has worked as a journalist in New York (at Harper’s Magazine), Toronto and London, where she is a senior feature writer and editor for the Guardian, writing on everything from politics to literature (essays on the academic novel, interviews with Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Edward Albee, Jorie Graham, Hilary Mantel etc) to reporting on the aircraft and North Sea oil industries. Her work has been chosen for Best American Essays, and nominated for a National Magazine Award and an Amnesty Media award. An early section of her first book was awarded a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for non-fiction. She lives in Oxford.