Paul Pickering

Paul Pickering is the author of eight novels, Wild About Harry, Perfect English, The Blue Gate of Babylon, Charlie Peace, The Leopard’s Wife, Over the Rainbow, Elephant, and Lucy. The Blue Gate of Babylon was a New York Times notable book of the year, who dubbed it ‘superior literature’. Often compared to Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Pickering was chosen as one of the top ten young British novelists by bookseller WH Smith and has been long-listed for the Booker Prize three times. Educated at The Royal Masonic Schools and Leicester University, he recently obtained a PhD in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, where he is a Visiting Fellow. The novelist J.G. Ballard said Pickering’s work is ‘truly subversive’. As well as short stories and poetry, he has written several plays, film scripts and columns for The Times, The Sunday Times and Punch. He lives in London and the Pyrenees.