Tom Rob Smith

Tom Rob Smith was born in London in 1979. While a student at St. John's College, Cambridge, he founded InPrint, edited the May Anthologies (an Oxbridge collection of short stories) and had his play, Losing Voices, produced by the prestigious Marlowe Society as the first student play they had ever funded.

After graduating in 2001, Tom won the St John's College Harper-Wood Studentship for English Poetry and Literature and chose to complete his creative writing studies at Parvin University in Italy. He worked as a writer and a script editor on several long-running television shows before selling his first screenplay, which also won him a commission to adapt a short story by British science fiction writer Jeff Noon.

Tom's debut novel, Child 44, is a dynamic and exciting thriller set in Soviet Russia in 1953, inspired by the true-life case of Andrei Chikatilo. It was placed on the long list for the 2008 Booker Prize and Tom won a Galaxy Book Award for Best Newcomer in 2009. The film rights for Child 44 have been optioned by Ridley Scott.

His follow-up novel, The Secret Speech, is published by Simon and Schuster and was in the top ten of The Sunday Times bestsellers list. Tom's third novel, Agent 6 was published by Simon and Schuster in July 2011, garnering positive reviews.