For decades Melvyn Bragg has occupied a unique and pivotal role in championing and presenting the Arts to the British public, both through The South Bank Show on ITV and in the BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time. Both programmes have reached huge audiences.
Melvyn Bragg's first novel, FOR WANT OF A NAIL, was published in 1965 and since then his novels have included THE HIRED MAN, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, WITHOUT A CITY WALL, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, CREDO, THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE and THE SOLDIER'S RETURN, which was published to huge critical acclaim in 1999 and won the WHSmith Literary Award. Melvyn Bragg has written several works of non-fiction (as well as his bestselling novels): ON GIANTS SHOULDERS, based on his BBC radio series, 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH and In Our Time, based on his BBC Radio 4 programme.
He was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton's Nelson Tomlinson School and at Oxford where he read history. He is President of the National Campaign for the Arts and Mind, and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He lives in London and Cumbria.