Cris Freddi

Pork was Cris Freddi's first book. The original edition was written in 1979, when he was 24, and published two years later to that favourite phrase of publishers: widespread critical acclaim.

Freddi followed this collection of short stories with his first novel, The Elder, published in 1983. Then a change of direction as he made himself into one of Britain's leading sports historians (one of its top armchair sportsmen, as he put it). His landmark book on the England football team was followed by three editions of the Complete Book of the World Cup, universally recognised as the best ever history of the event. A prolific contributor to newspapers and magazines, notably the seminal football fanzine When Saturday Comes, he also wrote a number of sports books for Guinness Publishing.

In 1994, he found time to win BBC Wildlife magazine's annual nature-writing competition, then returned to fiction in 2005 with another novel, Pelican Blood, based on birdwatching and murder (a natural pairing, he called it). Published in three different countries, it was made into a film in 2010.

Born in Reading of Italian parents, Cris Freddi has lived in London since 1977. He recently visited the wilds of Paraguay to research his latest novel. As in Pork, animals will feature. And birdwatching and murder.