Philippa Gregory was born in Nairobi, Kenya on January 9, 1954. She received a B.A. in history at Sussex University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 18th-century literature from the University of Edinburgh in 1984. She has taught at numerous universities and was made a fellow of Kingston University in 1994. She has written numerous historical novels including Wideacre, The Queens Fool, The Virgins Lover, The Constant Princess, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Other Queen, The White Queen, The Red Queen, and The Lady of the Rivers. She has also written several contemporary fiction works including Perfectly Correct, The Little House and Zeldas Cut. She adapted her novel A Respectable Trade, about the slave trade in England, into a four part series for BBC television. Her script won an award from the Committee for Racial Equality. She won the Feminist Book Fortnight Award in 1990 and the Romantic Novelist of the Year Award in 2002. Her book, The Other Boleyn Girl, won the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award and was adapted into a major feature film in 2008 starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. She also writes childrens books, is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, a frequent broadcaster for radio and television, and runs a small charity that builds wells in schoolyards in Gambia.