Lavinia Greenlaw was born in London. She studied seventeenth-century art at the Courtauld Institute, and was the first artist in residence at the Science Museum. Her awards include a Nesta Fellowship, the Ted Hughes Award for her immersive soundwork, Audio Obscura, and a Wellcome Engagement Fellowship. She has published six collections of poetry with Faber, including Minsk (2003), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot, Forward and Whitbread Poetry prizes, A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde (2014) which was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award, and The Built Moment (2019). Her novels include In the City of Love's Sleep (2018), and her non-fiction includes The Importance of Music to Girls (2007), Some Answers Without Questions (2021) and The Vast Extent: On Seeing and Not Seeing Further (2024). Her Selected Poems was published in 2024. She is Emeritus Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.