Iain Pears

Pears was born on 8 August 1955 in Coventry, England. He was educated at Warwick School, an all-boys public school in Warwick. He studied at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, and at Wolfson College, Oxford, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree.{{cite web|last1=Iain|first1=Pears|title=The growth of interest in painting in England, 1680-1768|url=http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.353523|website=EThOS|publisher=The British Library|access-date=19 May 2017|date=1984|archive-date=16 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716044528/https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.353523|url-status=dead}}

In 1985, Pears married Ruth Harris, a historian and academic. Together they have two sons. He currently lives with his wife and children in Oxford.

Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and ZDF (Germany) and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and US. In 1987 he became a Getty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Yale University.

Pears first came to international prominence with his best selling book An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997), which was translated into several languages. He is known for experimenting with different narrative structures, presenting four consecutive versions of the same events in An Instance of the Fingerpost, three stories interleaved in The Dream of Scipio (2002), three stories told in reverse chronological order in Stone's Fall (2009), and allowing the reader to switch between multiple narratives in the electronic book version of Arcadia (2015).{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/novel-use-for-app-iain-pears-arcadia|title=Why you need an app to understand my novel|date=20 August 2015|last=Pears|first=Iain}} He has also written a novel series featuring Jonathan Argyll, art historian.

This series presents detective art historian Jonathan Argyll who works with two members of the (fictitious) Italian Art Squad: Flavia di Stefano (deputy) and General Bottando (head of the squad).

Pears published seven books in the series:

• The Raphael Affair (1991)
• The Titian Committee (1992)
• The Bernini Bust (1993)
• The Last Judgement (1994)
• Giotto's Hand (1995)
• Death and Restoration (1996)
• The Immaculate Deception (2000)

• An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997)
• The Dream of Scipio (2002)
• The Portrait (2005)
• Stone's Fall (2009)
• Arcadia (2015)

• The Discovery of Painting (1989)

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{{cite web|title=PEARS, Dr Iain George|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U151481|website=Who's Who 2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=24 October 2016|date=November 2015}}

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Category:1955 births

Category:Living people

Category:English crime fiction writers

Category:English art historians

Category:People educated at Warwick School

Category:Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford

Category:Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford

Category:English male novelists

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