A. S. Byatt is renowned internationally for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize-winning Possession, The Biographer's Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman. Her most recent novel, The Children's Book was published in 2009. Her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye, Elementals and Little Black Book ofStories. A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, A S Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999. Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father.
She worked for 15 years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft for members of the judiciary. She was named Future Book Person of the Year in 2020. Her writing has received numerous awards including the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2014 and 2015 and the SI Leeds Literary Reader's Choice Prize 2014 and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. My Name Is Leon, her first novel was published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. She has two children and lives in the West Midlands. In 2012, Lim was named the Singapore recipient of the South East Asia Write Award. Her most recent novel, The River's Song, was published by Aurora Metro Books (2014) and was named 'Best Books of 2015' by Kirkus Reviews.
Her novel Fistful of Colours (1992) was awarded the Inaugural Singapore Literature Prize. A short story from Lim's The Lies That Build A Marriage, was made into a film. Her work is also featured in Writing The City, commissioned by British Council, Singapore.She has received a Fulbright grant, and is also a Fellow and former International Writer-in-Residence of the International Writers' Program, University of Iowa. She was the Arvon Foundation writer-in-residence, at Moniack Mhaor, in 2005. She has participated in the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Melbourne Writers' Festival, among many others. Lim has also held writing residencies in the Philippines, Myanmar, South Korea, Australia and the United Kingdom.