CHARLES LAMBERT was born in 1953 and went to Cambridge in 1972. In 1976 he moved to Milan. Currently a university teacher, academic translator and freelance editor, he lives in Fondi, exactly halfway between Rome and Naples. His first novel, Little Monsters, was published in 2008, the same year as his collection of prize-winning stories, The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories, won an O Henry prize.