Alex Garland was born in London in 1970. He is the author of the bestselling novels The Beach , The Tesseract and The Coma . He also wrote the screenplays for 28 Days Later and Never Let Me Go (based on the novel by Kazuro Ishiguro). In 2015, he made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He received three British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) for Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best British Independent Film. In 2018, his second film Annihilation, based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, was released.