I was bored with the law and had the dream of writing,” John Grisham recalled of his time as a young criminal defence attorney in Mississippi. His debut novel, 1989’s A Time to Kill, was followed by the global bestseller The Firm. After becoming a full-time writer, he became the king of the legal thriller, selling more than 300 million books.
Grisham, who was born in Arkansas on 8 February 1955, has also written sports books, novels for young adults, a short story collection and a non-fiction book about a baseball player wrongly convicted of murder. His latest novel, The Sparring Partner, comes out a week after he appears at the inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival (20-23 May 2022).
