Contributors

John Peet is Europe Editor at The Economist, where he has previously been Business Affairs Editor, Brussels Correspondent and Finance Correspondent. Before joining The Economist he was a civil servant, working for the Treasury and the Foreign Office.

Frederick Perls originated and developed Gestalt Therapy at Esalen Institute, California. Paul Goodman was a lay psychotherapist at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy.

Anne Peile is a Londoner. To earn a living she has folded jerseys for Joseph Ettedgui, baked cakes, written emails for the BBC, taught literacy, served in the world's most famous bookshop and run a seaside museum. Currently she works in Whitehall. Repeat It Today with Tears, her debut novel, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011. Her second novel, Seeing the World, is set against the backdrop of the Kennedy era.

George Pelecanos was born in Washington, DC in 1957. He has worked as producer, writer and story editor for the acclaimed and award-winning US crime series, The Wire<i>; his writing for the show earned him an Emmy nomination. He is the author of fifteen crime novels set in and around Washington, DC. The Big Blowdown was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in both Germany and Japan; King Suckerman was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects and Best American Mystery Stories of 1997. He is an award-winning journalist and pop-culture essayist who has written for the Washington Post. Pelecanos has also been involved in the production of several feature films. Most recently he has written an adaptation of King Suckerman for Dimension Films, and was co-writer on Paid in Full. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and three children.

Sarah Perry is the author of Essex Girls, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood. She has been the UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence in Prague and a Gladstone's Library writer-in-residence. Her work has been translated into twenty two languages. She lives in Norwich

Fernando Pessoa, one of the founders of modernism, was born in Lisbon in 1888. He grew up in Durban, South Africa, where his stepfather was Portuguese consul. He returned to Lisbon in 1905 and worked as a clerk in an import-export company until his death in 1935. Most of Pessoa's writing was not published during his lifetime; The Book of Disquiet first came out in Portugal in 1982. Since its first publication, it has been hailed as a classic.

Chris Pearson is Professor of Environmental History at the University of Liverpool. A specialist in human-animal history, he is the author of Dogopolis and a contributor to Dog Hearted: Essays on Our Fierce and Familiar Companions. He is currently researching the lives of Indian street dogs in a project funded by the Wellcome Trust. He lives in Chester with his family and his Bedlington-Whippet, Cassie.

Madeleine Pelling is an award-winning cultural historian, author and broadcaster, and has held research fellowships at the universities of Yale, Edinburgh and Manchester. She is the co-host of History Hit's popular After Dark podcast and is a regular contributor for TV and radio, including for Channel 4, Sky Arts, Warner Bros and the BBC. Her words appear in the Guardian, Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today, amongst others. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Uttama Kirit Patel is a writer who has lived in twelve cities across three continents. She holds an MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, has been a semi-finalist in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.

Soraya Palmer was born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NYC with roots in Trinidad and Jamaica. She works in Youth Organizing and holds a BA in Africana Studies an M.F.A. in Fiction. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Callaloo, Black Warrior Review, and Calyx. This is her first novel.

Vikram Paralkar was born and raised in Mumbai, and now lives in Philadelphia in the United States. He works as a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, where he treats patients with leukaemia and conducts research into the genetic mutations responsible for the illness.

After leaving Brixton Academy, Simon Parkes went on to run The Coronet in Elephant and Castle, as well as numerous other projects. He also got his life back, got married, had three sons, and did all the things he couldn't do when he was running the Brixton Academy. He and his family still live in Brixton.

David Peace grew up in Yorkshire in the '70's and vividly remembers listening to the hoax tape of the Yorkshire Ripper on his way home from school. He was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003. He lives in Japan.

Nicolas Padamsee grew up in Essex. He holds an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, and is one of the Observer's best new novelists for 2024. He is the editor of Arts Against Extremism. He splits his time between Norwich and Upton Park, London.

Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge, England and grew up in Cali, Colombia. Her short stories have been published in New Yorker, Granta and the White Review, and she teaches creative writing at UEA.