His first novel, For Want of a Nail, was published in 1965. Since then his novels have included The Hired Man, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, Without a City Wall, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Soldier’s Return, which won the WHSmith Literary Award, A Son of War and Crossing the Lines, both long listed for the Booker Prize, and his latest, Remember Me…
He has also written several works of non-fiction, which include The Adventure of English, 12 Books that Changed the World, and In Our Time, a collection of his Radio 4 series. The Final Cut, his selection of The South Bank Show interviews, is published in April 2010