Piers Paul Read, FRSL (born 7 March 1941) is an award-winning English novelist, historian and biographer.He was first noted in 1974 for a book of reportage Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, later adapted as a feature-film and a documentary. This was followed by some well-acclaimed novels that criticised English middle-class ethics from the less-usual viewpoint of a right-wing practising Catholic, with sin and redemption as recurring themes.Among his most popular works are The Professor's Daughter, A Married Man, and A Season in the West. Read is also a dramatist and TV scriptwriter.