Quote: Paul Binding (b. 1943) is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian. After spending his early childhood in Germany, he returned to be educated in England and studied English Literature at Oxford. He has been a lecturer at universities in Sweden, Mississippi, and Italy and was a managing editor for Oxford University Press and an editor for the New Statesman. His first novel, Harmonica’s Bridegroom (1984), was well reviewed by critics and earned accolades from novelists James Purdy and Brian Moore. Other novels have included Kingfisher Weather (1989); My Cousin the Writer (2006), chosen as book of the year by Francis King and deemed a ‘masterpiece’ by the Spectator; and, most recently, the critically acclaimed After Brock (2012).

Besides his novels, Binding frequently contributes reviews to The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, and others, and is the author of several non-fiction works, including Lorca: The Gay Imagination (1985), St. Martin’s Ride (1990) (a memoir), Eudora Welty: Portrait of a Writer (1994), and a study of the artist in Ibsen (2006).

For more than twenty years, Binding has been involved with the promotion of Scandinavian literature and culture. His latest work, Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in April 2014. He lives in Shropshire.