Carmen Callil was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia, and came to the UK in 1960. In 1972 she founded Virago and ten years later became Managing Director of Chatto & Windus. In 1994 she was awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Sheffield, York, Oxford Brookes and The Open University. In 1996 she chaired the judging panel of the Booker Prize. She is the author (with Colm Toibin) of The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950 and the highly acclaimed Bad Faith. She lives in London.