Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. In 2003, she was named Author of the Year three times: by the British Book Awards, The Booksellers’ Association and Waterstone’s Booksellers. She was also chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003.
Fingersmith won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature and both Fingersmith and The Night Watch were shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes.
Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith have all been adapted for television. The Night Watch is currently in development with the BBC. Sarah Waters lives in south London.