Chris Cleave (born in 1973 May 14) is a British writer and journalist. Cleave's debut novel Incendiary was published in twenty countries and has been adapted into a film. The novel won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. His second novel, The Other Hand, was released in August 2008 and was described as "A powerful piece of art. It was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Book Awards in the Novel category. Cleave was inspired to write The Other Hand from his childhood in West Africa. It was released in the US and Canada in January 2009 under the title Little Bee. Gold, his third novel, was called "bold and brave" by The Observer. Cleave is a columnist for The Guardian newspaper in London. From 2008 until 2010 he wrote a column for The Guardian entitled "Down with the kids". Less