Sebastian Faulks has written nineteen books, of which A Week in December and The Fatal Englishman were number one in the Sunday Times bestseller lists. He is best known for Birdsong, part of his French trilogy, and Human Traces, the first in an ongoing Austrian trilogy. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist on national papers. He has also written screenplays and has appeared in small roles on stage. He lives in London. Hope Wolf is a Research Fellow in English at Girton College, the University of Cambridge. Her main interests are in modern and contemporary literature, life writing and culture. She holds a PhD from King’s College London, and her doctoral research focused on archives at the Imperial War Museum.