Tom Sharpe was born in 1928 and educated at Lancing College and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He did his National Service in the Marines before going to South Africa in 1951, where he did social work before teaching in Natal. He had a photographic studio in Pietermaritz-burg from 1957 until 1961, when he was deported. From 1963 to 1972 he was a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. Tom Sharpe is the author of fourteen best-selling novels. His Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape were serialised on television and Wilt was made into a film. In 1986 he was awarded the XXXIIIeme Grand Prix de Г Humour Noir Xavier Forneret. He is married and divides his time between Cambridge England and Northern Spain.