Alex Preston
is a British author and journalist. His first novel, This Bleeding City was published by Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...

 in March 2010. The novel won the Spear's Best First Novel Prize, the Edinburgh Festival Readers' First Book Award, and was chosen as one of Waterstone's New Voices 2010. Preston is the brother of Samuel Preston

Samuel Preston

Samuel Dylan Murray Preston is a British singer, who was the lead singer of pop band The Ordinary Boys. He appeared in the reality television show Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, in which he finished fourth. After The Ordinary Boys split up, he embarked on a successful song writing career...

, the former singer of The Ordinary Boys

The Ordinary Boys

The Ordinary Boys are an English indie rock band from Worthing, in West Sussex, England. Originally named Next in Line, they were influenced by mod revival and Britpop music, as well as the bands Madness, The Specials, The Kinks and The Smiths...

 and Celebrity Big Brother

Celebrity Big Brother

Celebrity Big Brother could refer to:*Any series of Celebrity Big Brother UK:** Celebrity Big Brother 2001 ** Celebrity Big Brother 2002 ** Celebrity Big Brother 2005 ** Celebrity Big Brother 2006 ** Celebrity Big Brother 2007...

contestant. He is the grandson of Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 English professor and literary critic Samuel Hynes. Preston has a fortnightly column in the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

. He was previously Global Head of Trading at The Carlyle Group's Leveraged Finance division. He was educated at Hertford College, Oxford University.