Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967 and came to England in 1992. He studied engineering and worked in industry, then studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. His first book, Little Infamies (2002), was a collection of connected short stories set in a nameless Greek village. His second book, The Maze (2004), a novel set in Anatolia in 1922, was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Pendleton May First Novel Award. Short stories by Panos Karnezis have been broadcast by BBC Radio 4 and have appeared in Granta, New Writing 11, Prospect, and Areté. His other novels are The Birthday Party (2007, shortlisted for the Encore Award 2009 for the best second novel); The Convent (2010); The Fugitives (2015); and We Are Made of Earth (2019).