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Bernice Ruth Rubens (1923-2004) was a novelist, best known as the winner of the 1970 Booker Prize for Fiction (the first woman to win the prize) for The Elected Member, and as the winner of the 1976 Welsh Arts Council Prize for I sent a letter to my love, but she also published many other novels, short stories and articles, and worked as a teacher, a writer and director of documentary films, and a literary prize judge.

Born in Cardiff in 1923, the third child of an Orthodox Jewish father from Lithuania, she was brought up in a musical family. Her three siblings all became professional musicians, but Bernice Rubens was drawn towards literature, and married the novelist Rudolf (Rudi) Nassauer in 1947. She left Cardiff for Birmingham in 1948, but soon became disillusioned with her post as a teacher of English and French. Resolving to pursue a career in film, Rubens moved with her husband to London in 1950, where they cultivated the friendship of writers and intellectuals. Over the next two decades she worked on a number of films for organisations such as the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, the Society for the Blind, and the United Nations. The films dealt mainly with the vulnerable and disadvantaged, particularly children, the disabled and the developing world.

After the birth of her two daughters, Sharon (b. 1952) and Rebecca (b. 1954), Rubens devoted much of her time to them, and turned to novel writing as a convenient and rewarding use of her spare time. Her first novel, Set on Edge, was published in 1960, and its success encouraged her to continue writing. Popular and critical recognition of her talent was consolidated and increased as more of her work was published, but this created tension between Rubens and Nassauer, and the marriage was dissolved in 1970.

More than twenty of Bernice Rubens's novels have been published since 1960, and a number of them have been adapted for stage and screen. Although her first four novels dealt with Jewish family life, Rubens's work as a whole is difficult to categorise, as she was drawn towards exploring and experimenting with new and often unusual ideas. Her writing is firmly rooted in her sense of Jewishness, Welshness and womanhood, but fundamentally she was concerned with the universal human problems of love, communication, identity and survival. Her principal characters are often isolated socially or emotionally, facing the consequences of loneliness, guilt, selfishness and persecution. Rubens's style has been characterised as dark tragicomedy, witty yet sombre and unadorned, with the emphasis on character rather than description, revealing a down-to-earth interest in the quirky, the ironic, the contradictory and the unpredictable.

Critical reaction to Bernice Rubens's work has sometimes been mixed, but her novels have been published all over the world and her contribution to twentieth-century English literature is widely recognised. She died in 2004.

Keith Lander Best (born 10 June 1949) was Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Anglesey from 1979 (when he gained the seat from Labour) to 1983, and for (the renamed) Ynys Mon from 1983 to 1987. He was personal assistant to Nicholas Edwards, the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1981 to 1984. Best was born in Brighton and educated at Keble College, Oxford, before becoming a barrister in 1973. He served in the Territorial Army 1967-87 and as a Brighton Borough councillor 1976-80. After his election to Parliament, Best's reputation began to suffer when he was involved in a road accident in which his personal assistant was killed, although he was cleared of responsibility for the crash. He eventually stood down after admitting share-cheating. He was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for this in October 1987, although this sentence was quashed after he had served five days. His successor as MP for Ynys Mon was Plaid Cymru candidate Ieuan Wyn Jones. In 2000, Best failed in a bid for re-selection by the Conservative Party in Anglesey. He was director of Prisoners Abroad 1989-93. In 1993, he became chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service. In 2003, he was named by The Guardian as one of the 100 most influential people in public services in the UK.

Michael Holroyd is a well-known biographer and writer. He was born 27 August 1935 in London to Basil Holroyd and his Swedish wife Ulla (née Hall). He received his education at Eton College and Maidenhead Public Library. In 1982 he married the writer Margaret Drabble and they live in London and Somerset. He was Chairman of the Society of Authors, 1973-1974, President of English PEN from 1985 to 1988, and Chairman of the Strachey Trust between 1990 and 1995. In 1988 he was awarded the Irish Life Arts Award and the CBE in 1989 for services to literature. A former member of the Arts Council he lectures around the world on behalf of the British Council and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The universities of Ulster, Sheffield, Warwick, East Anglia and the London School of Economics have presented him with honorary degrees.
Michael Holroyd is the biographer of Hugh Kingsmill, Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and Bernard Shaw, and in 2002 a selection of his writings relating to biography and autobiography was published under the title Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography. The film 'Carrington' is based on Lytton Strachey and won awards at Cannes. His novel A Dog's Life was published in the USA in 1969 and in 1973 his volume of essays Unreceived Opinions was published. Michael Holroyd has also written various radio and television scripts. In 1999 his autobiography Basil Street Blues was published.