A.N. (Andrew) Wilson is an extraordinarily prolific writer of non-fiction (some 29 books) as well as fiction (a further 24 books) and journalism, the trade for which he is perhaps best known.
Wilson’s early ambition was to train for the priesthood but he left his Oxford seminary after a year. His religious inclinations - and his equivocal feelings towards organised religion - can be felt in all his work: he has written widely about the Bible as well as about eminent Victorians in a series of books notable for their scope. He followed his longlisted novel Winnie and Wolf - about the relationship between Hitler and Winifred Wagner - with a short biography of Hitler (2011). He is also the father of Emily Wilson, one of the judges of the 2020 Booker Prize.