Victoria Hislop

Early life and education Born in Bromley, Kent, Hislop was raised in Tonbridge and educated at Tonbridge Grammar School, a state-funded grammar school. She studied English at the University of Oxford where she was an undergraduate student at St Hilda's College, Oxford.

Career Hislop worked in publishing and as a journalist before becoming an author. Her novel The Island was a number-one bestseller in Britain, its success in part the result of having been selected by the Richard & Judy Book Club for their 2006 Summer Reads. To Nisi (The Island) was filmed as a television show by the Mega Channel in Greece.

In 2009, she donated the short story "Aflame in Athens" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of British stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the "Fire" collection. Hislop has a particular affection for Greece. She visits the country often and has a second home on the island of Crete.

Novels The Island

Hislop holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sheffield, serves on the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles with the Acropolis of Athens and was appointed Vice-President of the British School at Athens.

In 2020, Hislop was granted honorary Greek citizenship for promoting the modern history of Greece and culture of Greece. The following year she was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, the Greek version of Strictly Come Dancing.