Louis de Bernières is a renowned British author, best known for his bestselling fourth novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Born in London in 1954, he joined the army at the age of 18 but left after only four months at Sandhurst. De Bernières went on to graduate from the Victoria University of Manchester and obtained a postgraduate certificate in Education at Leicester Polytechnic, followed by an MA at the University of London. Before becoming a full-time writer, he held various jobs, including landscape gardener, motorcycle messenger, and car mechanic. He also spent time teaching English in Colombia, an experience that greatly influenced the style and setting of his first three novels.
De Bernières' first three novels, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (1990), Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (1991), and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (1992), were heavily influenced by South American literature, particularly 'magic realism.' In 1993, he was selected as one of the "Twenty Best of Young British Novelists" by Granta magazine. His fourth novel, Corelli's Mandolin, was published in 1994 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best Book. It was also shortlisted for the 1994 Sunday Express Book of the Year and has been translated into over eleven languages. The novel is set on the Greek island of Cephalonia during the Second World War and tells the story of a love affair between the daughter of a local doctor and an Italian soldier. It has become a worldwide bestseller and has been translated into over 30 languages, with a film adaptation released in 2001 and a stage adaptation produced in 2019.