Dr Chris Laoutaris is a biographer, historian, poet, Shakespeare scholar and Associate Professor at The Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham), in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the Fist Folio, published by HarperCollins’ William Collins imprint, which tells the story of the creation of the 1623 First Folio, and which is a Financial Times ‘Best Summer Read’ this year. In addition to numerous academic publications, he has published Shakespeare and the Countess: The Battle that Gave Birth to the Globe (Penguin), which was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize for Biography, was an Observer Book of the Year, Telegraph Book of the Year, one of the New York Post’s ‘Must-Read Books’, and one of the Daily Telegraph’s top ten history holiday reads. Laoutaris is the recipient of the Morley Medal in English, two prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowships (a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship and a Birmingham Fellowship), and his first poetry collection, Bleed and See (Broken Sleep Books), was shortlisted for the Eric Gregory Poetry Awards. He is the co-editor with Dr Paul Edmondson, Aaron Kent and Prof. Katherine Scheil of Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare(Broken Sleep Books), the world’s first anthology of poems for Anne Shakespeare.
Laoutaris has reviewed for numerous academic publishers and journals; has written for the Financial Times, Sunday Express, Times Higher Education Supplement, BBC History Magazine, and the Times Literary Supplement, among others; and has provided historical and Shakespearean consultancy to the Royal Shakespeare Company and numerous film and documentary production companies. His media work includes BBC1’s The One Show, BBC3’s Front Row, BBC Midlands, BBC Radio London, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Newstalk Radio Dublin, RIK Television Cyprus, Notimex (Mexico’s largest media agency), a British Council/Evans Wolfe Media documentary with Ben Crystal, HistoryHit TV with Dan Snow, Not Just The Tudors with Suzannah Lipscomb, and the BBC Shakespeare Festival.
He is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Shakespeare Beyond Borders Alliance and the Co-Founder of the EQUALityShakespeare (EQUALS) initiative.
Image © Lorentz Gullachsen
