MICHEL FABER has won several short story awards including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan: Some Rain Must Fall (1998), his first collection of stories, won a Scottish Arts Council award as well as the Saltire First Book of the Year Award, 1999. Faber's fiction is being translated into twenty seven languages. His second novel, The Crimson Petal and the White (2002) was a New York Times best seller. Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.