Marina Benjamin is in her early 30s. She studied History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. Before moving into journalism, at one point she worked as a professional gambler in Europe and Las Vegas. She then became Arts Editor of the New Statesman and Evening Standard. She has written for the Independent, Guardian and other papers, and for dot.com publications, and her previous book was Living at the end of the world (Picador, 1998). She now divides her time between in San Francisco and London.