James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of the bestselling Empire of the Clouds, which was hailed as a classic account of the golden age of British aviation. He won a Whitbread Prize for his first novel, Gerontius, and among his many other celebrated works are Seven-Tenths, one of the finest books written in recent times about the oceans, and the satirical trilogy that began with Cooking with Fernet Branca. Born and educated in England, he has lived in the Philippines and Italy and now makes his home in Austria.