Rupert Bogarde

Rupert Van den Bogaerde grew up in a small cottage in the Sussex countryside.

The third of five children, Rupert attended state schools until he was thirteen when his father's job took the family to Chicago.

Rupert studied photojournalism at university, then spent two years in London working in commercial TV before leaving the industry to travel to France.

In 1983 Rupert bought the ruins of a 12th Century Chapel in France's southern Pyrenees. He and his wife Jacquie set about the building's reconstruction, a solo labour of love that would take them seven years to complete. This is the setting of Rupert's first book, Daybreak into Darkness, which covers the battle to re-build the chapel and Jacquie's eventual struggle with mental illness leading to her tragic disappearance in 1993.

Rupert returned to England with his children and worked as a builder while completing Daybreak... He later wrote scripts for television and produced and recorded Voice Overs for various companies, syndicates and podcasts and played a principal part in the debut of his musician daughter Birdy's musical career.

Rupert's pilot sit-com creation, Losing The Plot, co-written with filmmaker Nicola Morris is the 2021 Los Angeles Film Awards winner with an honourable mention for television scriptwriting and has won three other accolades for scriptwriting internationally.

Rupert remarried in 1995 and lives in Hampshire with his wife, the concert pianist Sophie Roper-Curzon and their five children.

His YA novel, The Naked One will be available in autumn 2021.