John Gimlette was born in 1963. At seventeen, he crossed the Soviet Union by train and has since travelled to over 60 countries. In 1982, on the eve of the Falklands War, he was working on an estancia in Argentina. He returned to England via Paraguay and Bolivia to read law at Cambridge.

In 1997, he won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize with ‘Pink Pigs in Paraguay’, which was published in The Spectator in May of that year. The following year he won the Wanderlust Travel Writing competition.

He is a regular contributor to a number of British broadsheets, including The Daily Telegraph, Times and The Guardian travel sections. He also contributes to other travel titles, including the Conde Nast Traveller and Wanderlust. His travel photographs have appeared in the Telegraph, Wanderlust and Geographical.

Recent assignments have included Greece, Brussels, Libya, Spain and Venezuela.

John’s first book was At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, which is described as a 'vivid, riotous journey into the heart of South America' (see the Reviews page). His second book, Theatre of Fish, set in Newfoundland and Labrador, was published in the UK (February 2005) and USA (Fall 2005).

Both books were nominated by The New York Times as being among the ‘100 Notable Books of the Year’.

John’s latest book is Panther Soup, which follows a wartime journey through France, Germany and Austria (publication date: 6 March 2008 in the UK and 15 April 2008 in the USA).

John lives in London where he practices as a barrister. He is married to TV presenter, Jayne Constantinis, and they have one daughter, Lucy.