Nigel Cliff is a historian, biographer and critic. He has a BA and MA from the University of Oxford, where he was awarded a double First class degree in English and the Beddington Prize for English Literature. He is a former film and theatre critic for the London Times and writer for The Economist. His first book, The Shakespeare Riots, was published in 2007 by Random House and was a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing. He makes his home in London, but as a longtime aficionado of all things Italian, he is researching and writing part of his new book in Rome.