Lydia Syson is a historical novelist and biographer. Her latest book, Mr Peacock’s Possessions (2018), is set on a remote island at the height of the Pacific Slave Trade. She is currently working on a memoir of the radical women in her family, one of whom was a friend and colleague of Kropotkin’s for many years, an activist in the Freedom group and translator of Kropotkin’s The Great French Revolution and many other speeches and articles. She lives in London.