#3786, James RUNCIE

James was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and at Marlborough College, Wiltshire going on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge where his father had been Dean and his grandfather, Bursar to take a first class degree in English.

He became a novelist, a documentary film maker, a television producer, a theatre director and he is Artistic Director of the Bath Festival. His four novels are: Canvey Island, The Discovery of Chocolate, The colour of Heaven and East Fortune.

His entry at PFD reads:

James Runcie is the author of twelve novels, four plays and a memoir. He is also an award-winning documentary film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of both the Crime Writer’s Association and The Detection Club.

He is best known for the best-selling Grantchester Mysteries a six-book series featuring the clerical sleuth Canon Sidney Chambers, which has been adapted into eleven television series by ITV/PBS and shown in over 120 countries.

His novel The Great Passion, about the composer Johann Sebastian Bach was a Times/ Sunday Times Book of the Year for Historical Fiction.