Olivia Laing is an accomplished writer, literary artist and cultural commentator. She has written three books of non-fiction, To the River (based on the true story of a British civil servant George Orwell), The Trip to Echo Spring (a remembrance of a stag weekend in East Village, where a young woman had been killed in a hit-and-run car accident) and Crudo (a light-hearted comedy). She is currently working on a fourth book. Her writings are interwoven with the realities of her own Nationality and her own experience of living abroad. She has lived in Canada, England (where she earned a degree) and Australia.
Olivia Laing has a Master’s Degree in Canadian Studies and is originally from Scotland. She has been nominated for an OBE (honorary) in 2021 for her contribution to British literature and has previously published poetry and a novel in multiple languages. Her honors include the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Grand Master award from the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences and the CBT from University of Cambridge. She has also been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice.
Gordon Burn Prize – an international literary award – was presented to Olivia Laing in 2021 for “her outstanding contributions to the field of science and its literature”, the first time that such an award had ever been given out to an author outside of Britain. This is the second time that she has been shortlisted for the prize and will be up against books by William Dalry and Amity Shanks. She lives and works in London. She lives in France, New Zealand and Australia. Her other honors include the Grand Master award from University of Cambridge, the Florence Napoleonic Society prize and the Goldsmiths prize.