The Humorist

Russell Kane was born in Enfield, Essex, in 1980. His life-long love of literature meant that he read his way out of Ecstasy pills, cannabis and a job as a shop assistant, into a first-class degree and a job at an ad agency. He made Head of Copy in eighteen months. Then a colleague suggested stand-up comedy as a way of letting off steam and creative juice in the evening. Within two years, Kane had left the world of advertising to become a professional comedian and won last year's Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show, the most prestigious prize in UK comedy. The Humorist is his first novel.