Jonathan Buckley was born in Birmingham, grew up in Dudley, and studied English Literature at Sussex University, where he stayed on to take an MA. From there he moved to King’s College, London, where he researched the work of the Scottish poet/artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. After that he worked as a bookshop manager, stage hand, university tutor, decorator, builder, book reviewer, and maker of theatrical sets and props, before being commissioned to write the Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto. He went on to become a director at Rough Guides, and to co-write guidebooks on Tuscany & Umbria and Florence. He also contributed to the Rough Guide to Classical Music. His first novel, The Biography of Thomas Lang, was published by Fourth Estate in 1997. Xerxes followed in 1999, Ghost MacIndoe in 2001, Invisible in 2004 and So He Takes The Dog in 2006. From 2003 to 2005 he held a Royal Literary Fund fellowship at the University of Sussex.