Chris Arthur was born in Belfast and lived for many years in County Antrim. Following a period working as warden on a nature reserve beside the shores of Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles and Northern Ireland's enigmatic geographical heart, Arthur went to university in Scotland. After graduation he spent some time as a TV researcher and then as a schoolteacher before taking up academic posts at the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews (where he held the first Gifford Research Fellowship). On being appointed to a lectureship at what was then St David's University College (later the University of Wales, Lampeter), he moved to Welsh-speaking rural Ceredigion and lived there for over a decade. When Lampeter merged with a neighbouring college and began to embrace priorities and policies with which he disagreed, he resigned and returned to Scotland to concentrate full-time on writing. In 2014 he became a Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund.
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