Ian Rankin

Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America’s celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Award in the USA, won Denmark’s Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University. A contributor to BBC2’s Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin’s Evil Thoughts. Rankin is a number one bestseller in the UK and has received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. Peter Forbes studied English in the same year as Ian Rankin at Edinburgh University. His credits include BERKELEY SQUARE (BBC) , Peter Kosminsky’s THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR (Channel 4) , the multi-award winning BLACK WATCH (National Theatre of Scotland) , NEVER SO GOOD, AFTERLIFE and THE OBSERVER (National Theatre) and MAMMA MIA! (West End). He was nominated in the 2011 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland for his performance in Liz Lochhead’s EDUCATING AGNES (Royal Lyceum Theatre). He has read the unabridged THE COMPLAINTS and A COOL HEAD, both by Ian Rankin and THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND by Giles Foden.