1. Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare FRSL was born on 3 March 1957 and is a British novelist and biographer, described by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the best English novelists of our time".
19 Facts About Nicholas Shakespeare
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John Shakespeare was later charge d'affaires at Buenos Aires, before serving as Ambassador to Peru from 1983 to 1987, and Ambassador to Morocco from 1987 to 1990.
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Nicholas Shakespeare was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school in Oxford, then at Winchester College and at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
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Nicholas Shakespeare worked as a journalist for BBC television and then on The Times as assistant arts and literary editor.
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In 1999, Nicholas Shakespeare published his biography of Bruce Chatwin to widespread critical acclaim.
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Nicholas Shakespeare has made several extended biographies for television: on Evelyn Waugh, Mario Vargas Llosa, Bruce Chatwin, Martha Gellhorn, and Dirk Bogarde.
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The Dancer Upstairs was made into a feature film of the same name in 2002, for which Nicholas Shakespeare wrote the screenplay and which John Malkovich directed.
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Nicholas Shakespeare was nominated as one of Grantas Best of British Young Novelists in 1993.
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Nicholas Shakespeare has written articles for Granta, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The Monthly, among other publications.
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In 1999, Nicholas Shakespeare was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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In 2010 Nicholas Shakespeare was invited by the Anglo-Argentine Society to give the prestigious Borges Lecture in London.
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In January 2012, according to journalists, Nicholas Shakespeare's writings were mistakenly confused for William Shakespeare's by French presidential candidate Francois Hollande when he said: "Let me quote Shakespeare, 'they failed because they did not start with a dream'".
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In 2013, Nicholas Shakespeare published an account of his aunt, Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France.
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In 2015, Nicholas Shakespeare published a collection of stories, Stories from Other Places.
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In 2024, Nicholas Shakespeare published Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, a biography of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
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In 2009, Nicholas Shakespeare donated the short story "The Death of Marat" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors.
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Nicholas Shakespeare contributed a story, "The Return of the Native", to OxTravels, a travel anthology that was produced to raise money for Oxfam's work.
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In October 2012, Nicholas Shakespeare travelled to Cambodia with photographer Emma Hardy to visit Oxfam's work.
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Nicholas Shakespeare wrote two articles about the trip, "Beyond The Killing Fields", which was published in Intelligent Life, and "How The Dead Live", which was published in New Statesman.