Dr Christine S Nicholls grew up and went to a school in Kenya, before moving to Britain to study at Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall, MA 1964, St Antony's College, D.Phil. 1968). After leaving university, she stayed in Oxford, where she married an Oxford don and had three children.

Christine spent a year as a research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London University. Her first book, in 1971, was The Swahili Coast (Allen & Unwin), which looked at the empire the Arabs had established in East Africa, particularly in Zanzibar, before the British and Germans took over the area. She then became a freelancer researcher for the BBC.

In 1977 Christine became Joint Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, owned by Oxford University Press, and produced three volumes (1961-70, 1971-1980, 1980-85). Following the publication of her Cataract, with Philip Awdry (Faber & Faber, 1985), she took sole charge of the Dictionary of National Biography, overseeing the two final volumes (1986-90 and Missing Persons).

Retiring from editorship of the Dictionary of National Biography in 1995, Christine was made Editor of the Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Biography (Helicon, 1996) and Editor of Sutton Pocket Biographies (30 were published, including her David Livingstone, 1998).

She has since published a History of St Antony's College, Oxford, 1950-2000 (Macmillan, 2000), Elspeth Huxley: a Biography (HarperCollins, 2002) and Red Strangers: the White Tribe of Kenya (Timewell Press, 2005). She has given several lectures on the subject of Kenya’s Europeans.

To contact Christine Nicholls, please do so through her agent (details below):

Agent: Andrew Lownie - www.andrewlownie.co.uk

Email: lownie@globalnet.co.uk