One of the youngest writers to be elected to the Royal Society of Literature, Philip Hensher was more or less "canonized" with an entry in the eighth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1995), edited by Margaret Drabble. A respected novelist and the only author of his generation to be included in The Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998), edited by A. S. Byatt, Hensher is also a sharp critic, reviewing books for The Spectator (London) on a regular basis and writing a column for The Independent (London). His critical reflections, both in his columns and in his fiction, are an important contribution to the shape of the British literary scene at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Hensher was born in London on 20 February 1965. His father, R. J. Hensher, was a bank manager, his mother, M. Foster Hensher, a university librarian. He grew up in Kingston...