Patrick French won the award in 1998 for Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division. His top tips for young writers are short and sweet –
- Believe in your talent, if you have it.
- Ignore the peripheral.
- Find a good editor.
Patrick French is the author of books including Younghusband, Liberty or Death and The World Is What It Is, and is presently at work on the authorised biography of Doris Lessing. He is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, Somerset Maugham Award, Royal Society of Literature WH Heinemann Prize, Hawthornden Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.