David Mitchell

David Mitchell was born in 1969 in Southport, Worcestershire, England. He studied English and American literature at the University of Kent and then completed a master's degree in comparative literature. He spent a year in Sicily before traveling to Japan, specifically Hiroshima, where he lived for eight years teaching English. He currently resides in Cork, Ireland, with his Japanese wife and their two children. He has authored the novels "Ghostwritten" (1999), "Number9dream" (2001), "Cloud Atlas" (2004), "Black Swan Green" (2006), and "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" (2010), two of which ("Number9dream" and "Cloud Atlas") were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Critics praised his writing, following his first book, for its "dazzling version of non-linear, metaphysical prose," leading to his inclusion in Granta magazine's list of "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2003.