Dea Birkett

Writers bio:
Dea Birkett (www.deabirkett.com) is a distinguished travel writer and broadcaster. Her first travel book, Jella: A Woman At Sea, about her voyage as a member of crew on board a West African cargo ship, won the Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for Travel Writer of the Year.

She is also author of Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers ('subtle, acute, fascinating' Sunday Times) and a biography of the Victorian lady traveller Mary Kingsley, Imperial Adventuress. Her latest book, Serpent In Paradise, ("a captivating book", say the Telegraph) is about her time on Pitcairn Island, home to the few remaining descendants of the Bounty mutineers and was short-listed for the 1998 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. She is co-editor of the best-selling Amazonian: The Penguin Book of Women's New Travel Writing. Dea was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to join an Italian circus.