Benjamin Markovits

Benjamin Markovits FRSL (born 1973) is a British-American writer. He is the author of twelve novels, among them a trilogy on the life of poet Lord Byron. Markovits was selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta magazine in 2013. In 2016, his novel You Don't Have To Live Like This won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. In 2025, his novel The Rest of Our Lives was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

Background Born in 1973 in California, United States, Ben Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin, and studied at Yale University and the University of Oxford. He has worked as a high-school English teacher and as the editor of a left-wing culture magazine. After college, he played professional basketball in Landshut, Germany, for a team in the southern league of the German second division.

Markovits now lives in London, England, where he teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.