Chris Greenhalgh was born in 1963 and brought up in Manchester. After studying English literature at university, he lived and worked for five years in Italy and Athens. Upon his return to England, he completed his doctoral thesis on postmodern American poetry and became a teacher. He is currently teaching at Sevenoaks School.

Novels

Coco and Igor was first published in the UK in 2002 by Headline Review and has since been translated into several languages, including French, Russian, Polish, Greek, and Chinese. The novel is based on the supposed affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky in Paris in 1920.

Greenhalgh’s second novel, The Cool End of Red, is set in Paris, after the end of the Second World War. Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman and war photographer Robert Capa begin an intense and reckless affair, but the rigours of their work and the risk of exposure threaten to overwhelm the lovers.

Film scripts

Greenhalgh has written a screenplay adapting his novel Coco and Igor. This has now been filmed as Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, directed by Jan Kounen and starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen.

The 2009 Cannes Film Festival selected Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky to be shown in its prestigious closing slot, on 24 May 2009.

Poetry

, Greenhalgh has published three volumes of poetry, all with Bloodaxe Books.

• Stealing the Mona Lisa (1994)
• Of Love, Death and the Sea-Squirt (2000)
• The Invention of Zero (2007)