James Meek was born in London in 1962 and grew up in Dundee. Drivetime was his second novel. His book The People's Act of Love (2005) won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the SAC Book of the Year Award, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and has been translated into more than twenty languages.

He has published two collections of short stories, Last Orders (1992) and The Museum of Doubt (2000), which was shortlisted for a Macmillan Silver Pen award.

His most recent novel We Are Now Beginning our Descent draws on his reporting for the Guardian from Afghanistan on the war against the Taliban and the liberation of Kabul. His journalism on Iraq and about Guant�namo Bay won a number of British and international awards.

He now lives in London.