Justin Hill

Justin Hill has been likened to a George Orwell, a boxer, and Tolstoy. His novel Shieldwall, which is the first of a series of books examining the event leading up to the Norman Conquest in 1066, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. The second, Viking Fire, recounting the life of the last Viking, Harald Hardrada, was a Times Book of the Year.

Hill’s first novel, the his internationally acclaimed first novel, The Drink and Dream Teahouse, was banned by the government in China. The Washington Post selected it as one of their Books of the Year. It won the 2003 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, a 2002 Betty Trask Award.
His second novel, Passing Under Heaven, telling the life of Tang Dynasty poetess, Yu Xuanji, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Encore Award. Ciao Asmara, a factual account of his time in Eritrea, was shortlisted for the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. In 2014 he was selected to write the sequel to the Oscar winning film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Growing up blond in York at a time when the Jorvik Digs were happening, Justin has always been interested in the Viking Age, an interest only deepened after he discovered JRR Tolkien’s work. He attended the same school as Guy Fawkes, studied Medieval Language and Literature at Durham University and spent his twenties working as a volunteer in rural China and Eritrea, East Africa. He has a PhD. from Goldsmith’s College, London.

He lives in the foothills of the North Yorkshire Moors. For links, interviews and podcasts, visit his website [www.justinhillauthor.com] or follow him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/justinhillauthor/) or Twitter: @JHillAuthor