Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo is a British writer, born in St Albans in 1943, best known for his children's fiction. He taught in primary schools before turning to writing, and in 1976 he founded Farms for City Children with his wife Clare, a charity that brings city children to work on farms. He has published around 150 books, among them “War Horse” (1982), the story of a farm horse requisitioned in 1914, later staged by the National Theatre in 2007 and filmed by Steven Spielberg in 2011; “The Butterfly Lion” (1996), “Kensuke's Kingdom” (1999) and “Private Peaceful” (2003) are equally widely read. He served as Children's Laureate from 2003 to 2005, and was knighted in 2018.