Maggie Gee has published fifteen books to great acclaim in the UK, and her work has been translated into fourteen languages. One of Granta's original 'Best Young British Novelists' (1983, with William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Julian Barnes), she has been shortlisted for major prizes, including the Orange (now the Women's) Prize, the IMPAC, and been a Booker Prize judge. The first professional writer in her family and from the first generation to go to university (Academic Scholar, Somerville College, University of Oxford), she was the first female Chair of the UK Royal Society of Literature, and is now one of its Vice-Presidents. Gee works as a Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, writes novels and journalism, and is a Director of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society. The Queen awarded her an OBE for Services to Literature in 2012.