Joanne Harris was born in Barnsley in 1964, of a French mother and an English father. She attended Wakefield Girls’ High School and Barnsley Sixth Form College before going on to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge to study modern and medieval languages. For fifteen years she taught modern languages at Leeds Grammar School before finally giving up teaching in 2000 to write full time. She is the author of nine novels, including /Chocolat/ - which was made into an academy award nominated movie in 2001 – a book of short stories and two cookbooks, /The French Kitchen/ and /The French Market/, co-written with Fran Warde.