Michael Arditti is an acclaimed novelist, short story writer and critic. His novels are The Celibate (1993), Pagan and her Parents (1996), Easter (2000), Unity (2005), A Sea Change (2006) The Enemy of the Good (2009), Jubilate (2011), The Breath of Night (2013), Widows and Orphans (2015), Of Men and Angels (2018), The Anointed (2020), The Young Pretender (2022) and The Choice (2023). He was awarded an Honorary D Litt from the University of Chester and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

The tone and the mood of the stories are richly varied: at times, his writing verges on dark comedy; at others, it feels mythical and dramatic. I hope that people will enter into Arditti’s world — and I suspect that the lives and faces that linger for each reader will reflect the stories that resonate most deeply with our lives and stories. Part of the beauty of what Arditti does is to invite us to find our full self and our true meaning in the lives that he creates and opens up for us.