Joanna Kavenna grew up in various parts of Britain, and has also lived in the USA, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States. Her first book The Ice Museum was about travelling in the North. Her second book, a novel called Inglorious, won the Orange Prize for New Writing. Kavenna's writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Guardian and Observer, the Times Literary Supplement, the International Herald Tribune, the Spectator and the Telegraph, among other publications. She has held writing fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford and St John's College, Cambridge. She currently lives in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria.