Matthew Teller

I write about people, place and culture.

I'm the author of Finding Aladdin (2026), Daybreak in Gaza (2024: shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards), Nine Quarters of Jerusalem (2022: a Telegraph Book of the Year), Quite Alone (2020) and other titles. I contribute to media around the world, produce and present documentaries for BBC Radio, am in demand as a public speaker and have written for the travel publisher Rough Guides for the last 30 years.

For as long as I can remember, I've been a writer. A family holiday to Jerusalem in 1980, when I was 11, was my first trip outside the UK. Even today, the smell of cumin takes me straight back there. That was also my first time in the desert - I remember standing on a lonely road, feeling the hottest sun I'd ever felt, seeing the longest views I'd ever seen.

I'm lucky enough to have spent half a lifetime since then living, working and travelling in the Middle East and beyond, as far as Antarctica.