Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. He is the author of five acclaimed novels, most recently SEASCRAPER, which won the Nero Book Award for Fiction and the Winston Graham Historical Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025. It is soon to be translated and released in twelve further languages. His first novel won France's Prix du Roman Fnac in 2014 and his other works have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Costa First Novel Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award, the European Union Prize for Literature, the Commonwealth Book Award, and the RSL Encore Award. He has taught fiction and developed creative writing programmes at King's College London and Birkbeck, University of London. He lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.