The Estate of Nicholas Evans

Nicholas Evans was born and grew up in Worcestershire, England. He studied law at Oxford University, graduating with first class honours, then worked as a journalist for three years on the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He then moved into television, producing films about US politics and the Middle-East for a weekly current affairs programme called Weekend World. It was during this time that he travelled a lot and got to know the United States.

In 1982 he started to produce arts documentaries – about famous writers, painters and film-makers, several of which won international awards (films about David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Patricia Highsmith). In 1983 he made a film about the great British director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, etc). Lean became a friend and mentor and encouraged Evans to switch from fact to fiction.

For the next ten years, Evans wrote and produced a number of films for television and the cinema. In 1993 he met a blacksmith in the far South-West of England who told him about horse whisperers – people who have the gift of healing traumatized horses. Evans started work on what was to be his first novel.

Published in 1995, The Horse Whisperer has now sold more than fifteen million copies across the world, making it one of the bestselling books of all time. It has been the number one bestseller in about 20 countries and has been translated into 36 languages. It was also made into a movie, starring, produced and directed by Robert Redford.

Evans wrote a further four acclaimed novels: The Loop, The Smoke Jumper, The Divide and his The Brave. He died in 2022.