Giles Foden, who grew up in Africa, was for three years an assistant editor of the Times Literary Supplement and then joined the staff of the Guardian. In 1998 Foden won the Whitbread First Novel Award for the Last King of Scotland, which was followed in 1999 by Ladysmith - two novels which, according to Alan Massie writing in the Scotsman, 'establish him as the most original and interesting novelist of his generation'.