“You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory - the place, the past - speaks.”

English novelist, biographer and critic

Peter Ackroyd is an English novelist, biographer and critic, known for his work on the history and culture of London. He has built a large body of work and is widely noted for technically inventive fiction. His writing ranges across different styles, and he is praised for the way he can take on varied voices while drawing on deep research. That combination has made him a distinctive presence in contemporary English letters, with work that moves between invention, biography and literary criticism.