William Fiennes Biography
William Fiennes (born 1970) is a British author, a descendent of the Fiennes family of Broughton Castle near Banbury, Oxfordshire. He is the youngest son of Nathaniel Fiennes, 21st Baron Saye and Sele.
He has a brother, Martin, and a sister, Suzanne. Another brother, Thomas, died at the age of three, before Fiennes was born, and his brother Richard developed epilepsy, from which he died.
He is a second cousin of the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and a third cousin of the actors Ralph Fiennes and Joseph Fiennes.
Fiennes was educated at Eton College and Oxford University; while there, he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. His first book, Snow Geese, was written while recuperating. It won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
William Fiennes’ childhood in an Oxfordshire castle might seem to offer little to which the average reader could relate. But as this, his second book demonstrates, common themes are sounded in family life wherever it is lived. Fiennes explores loneliness, loss and sorrow with an unusual combination of lyricism, humor and sensitivity. From the death before his own birth of his brother Thomas to the impact on his family of his elder brother Richard’s epilepsy and aggression, via the peculiar delights of a childhood lived in “dark historical spaces”, Fiennes’s memoir conveys the beauty and pain of everyday life.
He lives in England, and runs a charity called First Story, which arranges and pays for acclaimed authors to be writers-in-residence in low income schools across the UK.
This biography was last updated on 10/08/2009.
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