Claire Gervat

Writers bio:
Born in London to one English and one French parent, Claire Gervat was captivated by tales of explorers at school, but a not-quite-brief-enough foray into the City meant she didn't follow in their footsteps until her late twenties.

She has been a freelance writer for the past eight years, contributing travel articles to many national newspapers and magazines, including Conde Nast Traveller, the Independent and Independent on Sunday, the Evening Standard and Bella. She loves islands and odd places, and would rather windsurf and dive than lie on the beach - though she has spent many happy hours just hanging around in tea shops all over India and cafés elsewhere.

When not wandering and writing in far-flung places, Claire has turned her hand to a variety of other subjects. "The Trader", her humorous weekly column about the life of a fictional City girl, in the Independent, ran for nearly four years. Her first book, a biography of the eighteenth-century beauty and bigamist Elizabeth Chudleigh called "Elizabeth: the Scandalous Life of the Duchess of Kingston", was published in June 2003 (Century, £17.99).