Alexander Masters author page

Alexander Masters biography

Alexander Masters is a British author and screenwriter. He studied physics at King’s College London and mathematics at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Masters is known for his work documenting the lives of people experiencing homelessness and social exclusion.

His first book, Stuart: A Life Backwards, was published in 2005 by Fourth Estate. The biography recounts the life of Stuart Shorter, a homeless man from Cambridge. The book won the Guardian First Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize, and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Costa Biography Award. In 2007, the BBC and HBO adapted the book into a television film, for which Masters co-wrote the screenplay.

Masters published his second book, The Genius in My Basement: The Biography of a Happy Man, in 2011. The book explores the life of mathematician Simon P. Norton. In 2016, he released A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in a Skip, which investigates the anonymous diaries discovered in Cambridge.

Masters has received the Arts Council Writers’ Award. His work has been recognised for its detailed research and focus on individual stories. Stuart: A Life Backwards remains his most widely acclaimed publication.