Daniel Hahn is a freelance writer, editor, researcher and translator who was educated at Cambridge (BA in English Literature) and UCL (MA in Comparative Literature. He is the author of The Tower Menagerie (Simon & Schuster, 2003), of the official history of the Roundhouse (forthcoming, March 2007) and co-author of the guidebook to Shakespeare’s Globe. He has also researched and scripted the Globe's permanent exhibition and four temporary exhibitions (with a fifth currently underway), and edited (with artistic director Mark Rylance) a retrospective of the theatre’s first five years. He has been either Assistant Editor or Acting Editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature (with Margaret Drabble), The Good Fiction Guide (with Jane Rogers) and two editions of The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, all for Oxford University Press; he has co-edited the award-winning Ultimate Book Guide for 8-12s and The Ultimate Teen Book Guide (A&C Black, 2004 and 2006 respectively), and recently completed The Ultimate First Book Guide (due Feb 2008); he is currently co-editing The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland (forthcoming summer 2008).

Among some two-dozen translations (from Portuguese, Spanish and French), major projects include Creole (2002) and The Book of Chameleons (2006) by Angolan novelist José Eduardo Agualusa (both Arcadia Books); the latter translation has been shortlisted for the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Other translations include the autobiography of Brazilian footballer Pelé (Simon & Schuster, 2006), which was shortlisted for Best Sports Book of 2006 at the British Book Awards. Since 2002 he has worked with Human Rights Watch, programming events (at the Royal Court Theatre, the Globe, the Hay Festival and elsewhere); over sixty performers have taken part including Dame Judi Dench, Vaclav Havel, Harold Pinter and Sting. Daniel appears regularly at book festivals and other public events. In 2006 these included appearances at the Hay, Edinburgh and Cheltenham festivals. He continues to do occasional freelance work for books, magazines, websites, newspapers); recent commissions include writing two chapters about England’s Hanoverian queens for a forthcoming history book edited by Alison Weir and two pieces for The Guardian. He is also currently researching a new work of narrative history and has been editorial director of ICONS, a high-profile website (www.ICONS.org.uk) commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which aims to promote culture in England to hard-to-reach audiences through various public participation programmes. He is a member of the Council of Shakespeare’s Globe; a member of the International Council of Human Rights Watch; a founding steering committee member of the HRW London Network (and chair of the Outreach and Education group); a member of the Writers in Translation Committee at English PEN; on the board of governors of a Brighton primary school; and a trustee governor of a Brighton special school.