Jonathan Raban is the author of Passage to Juneau, Bad Land, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Coasting, Old Glory, Arabia, and Soft City. Foreign Land (1985) was his first novel. His awards include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Award, and the Governor's Award of the State of Washington. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Harpers, the New York Review of Books, Outside, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, and other magazines.
In 1990 Raban, a British citizen, moved from London to Seattle, where he now lives with his daughter.