Prof. Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specialising in World History. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has become an international phenomenon attracting a legion of fans from Bill Gates and Barack Obama to Chris Evans and Jarvis Cocker, and is published in over 60 languages worldwide, selling 16 million copies. It was a Sunday Times Number One bestseller and was in the Top Ten for over nine months in paperback. His follow-up to Sapiens, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow was also a Top Ten Bestseller and was described by the Guardian as ‘even more readable, even more important, than his excellent Sapiens.

Katherine Rundell is the bestselling author of five children’s novels and has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize among many others. Katherine spent her childhood in Zimbabwe and Europe before taking her degree at the University of Oxford and becoming a Fellow of All Souls College.