A.S. Byatt is an internationally acclaimed novelist, short-story writer and critic. Her books include the Booker Prize-winning Possession, as well as The Children's Book and the quartet of The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower, and A Whistling Woman. She was appointed Dame of the British Empire in 1999 and has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen award, and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. She lives in London, England.