Rupert Christiansen is an English writer, journalist and critic, grandson of Arthur Christiansen and son of Kay and Michael Christiansen. Born in London, he was educated at Millfield and King's College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in English. As a Fulbright scholar, he also attended Columbia University from 1977 to 1978. He has written a number of books, including a biography of Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough, and won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1988 for Romantic Affinities. His memoir I Know you're Going to be Happy won the Spear's Memoir of the Year prize in 2013. He has also written for many British and American newspapers and periodicals, including The Spectator, Harper's and Queen, Vanity Fair, Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review. Formerly arts editor of Harper's and Queen and deputy arts editor of The Observer, he has been opera critic and arts columnist of the Daily Telegraph and dance critic of The Mail on Sunday since 1996. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997. He sits on the editorial board of Opera magazine, and is a former board member of the Charleston Trust and the Gate Theatre. 

January 1st, 1954 in London (Age 71)