I am Director of Studies for English Literature and Creative Writing at Kingston University, near London. Most of my research and writing to date has been on twentieth and twenty first century authors such as Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, Vikram Chandra and Samuel Selvon, though I am currently branching out and writing a book about English folk and fairy tales in the colonial period. I'm interested in stories and storytelling, and am particularly fascinated by what happens to stories as they travel between cultures, metamorphosing as they go. Like Rushdie, I'm also interested in what stories can tell us about who we are, what we believe, and what we would like to be. Currently I live in Streatham Hill, South London, with my wife and two young children - all of whom help me with my research.