Vesna Goldsworthy was born in Belgrade in 1961. She teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her first book, Inventing Ruritania (Yale, 1998), has been translated into Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian and Serbian. Her acclaimed memoir, Chernobyl Strawberries, (Atlantic 2005) was a bestsetller in five European countries. It was serialised in The Times and read by Vesna herself as Book of the Week on Radio Four.