Simon Sebag Montefiore is a prizewinning historian and novelist whose bestselling books have been published in over forty-eight languages. He has won prizes for both fiction and non-fiction: Catherine the Great and Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and is being developed as a feature by Angelina Jolie. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the British Book Awards History Book of the Year Prize. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize (Austria).

Jerusalem: The Biography was a number one bestseller in the UK, won Book of the Year Prize from the Jewish Book Council (USA).

The Romanovs: 1613-1918 won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize (Italy). He is also the author of two collections of letters and speeches: Written in History: Letters That Changed the World and Voices of History: Speeches That Changed the World.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of the Moscow Trilogy of novels: Sashenka, Red Sky at Noon and One Night in Winter, which won Political Novel of the Year Prize and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize. He has also written, with Santa Montefiore, the series of children’s books The Royal Rabbits of London. All his books are now being optioned and developed for either films or TV drama series.

He has written and presented five BBC TV series including Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City, Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain, Rome: A History of the Eternal City and Vienna: Empire Dynasty and Dream. He read history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University where he received his Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Buckingham, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children.