Philip Marsden is the award-winning author of a number of books of history, travel and fiction. In the 1990s he divided his time between Cornwall and extended periods in the Middle East, the former territories of the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Out of these journeys came books like The Crossing Place: A Journey among the Armenians (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), The Bronski House and The Spirit-Wrestlers (winner of the Thomas Cook Prize). Soon he found himself married, living in Cornwall, with children in the local school.
The focus of his work grew more local, burrowing into Falmouth’s story and the sea’s influence for The Levelling Sea and the mythology of place through Cornish sites in Rising Ground (winner of three categories in the Cornish book awards, Holyer an Gof), sailing up the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland for The Summer Isles.
His latest book Under a Metal Sky begins underground, in the fragile galleries of Cornish mines and ends in a village in the Caucasus, panning for gold. In between he follows up a number of stories in central Europe, examining both the magic and danger that have come with our prodigious use of the earth’s materials. His work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. He is involved in a number of conservation projects, both marine and terrestrial, and lives on an old Cornish farm where he is trying to restore biodiversity - a task at least as arduous, time-hungry and ultimately satisfying as writing books.
