Born in England in 1970 Santa Montefiore grew up on a farm in Hampshire and was educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She read Spanish and Italian at Exeter University and spent much of the 90s in Buenos Aires, where her mother grew up. She converted to Judaism in 1998 and married historian Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha in London.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, who was born in 1965, educated at Harrow School and read history at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. He spent much of the nineties travelling through the ex-Soviet Empire, particularly the Caucasus, Ukraine and Central Asia, and wrote widely on Russia, especially for The Sunday Times, The New York Times, The New Republic and The Spectator. “Prince of Princes: the Life of Potemkin” was published to acclaim in 2000 and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper and Marsh Biography Prizes. “Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar” was published in 2003 and won the British Book Awards ‘History Book of the Year’ Prize in 2004. Montefiore is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the author of two novels, and the presenter of television documentaries on historical subjects. For more details on his books, please see his website: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com

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