Stephen Clarke grew up mainly in Bournemouth, but managed to drag himself away from the beach long enough to go to Oxford and get a degree in French and German. He then worked mainly abroad, teaching English, translating, picking grapes, playing guitar and doing washing-up, before getting a job as a lexicographer with HarperCollins in Glasgow. There, he added new and rude words to French and German dictionaries, but left after three years due to the stress of conjugating French verbs. He went to live in Paris where he worked as a journalist for an English-language magazine, and quickly learned to adapt to long holidays and the 35-hour week. Meanwhile, he had been writing novels with minimal success, and finally decided to self-publish one that had been rejected by publishers and literary agents. This was A Year in the Merde, which has gone on to sell well over a million copies. He has since published several other books, mainly about Anglo-French relations, including Talk to the Snail, Paris Revealed and 1000 Years of Annoying the French. His latest novel is The Merde Factor.