Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh in 1918. A poet, essayist, biographer and novelist, she won much international praise, including being twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Times placed her eighth in its list of the Fifty Greatest British Writers Since 1945. She died in Tuscany in 2006. Kapka Kassabova is the author of Street without a Name (2008), the unsentimental story of a Communist childhood which was shortlisted for the Prix Européen du Livre and the Dolman Travel Book Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in the Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, the Scottish Review of Books and on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. Kassabova lives in the Scottish Highlands.