James Hawes was born in 1960. He read German at Oxford University, where he was allowed to hold the original manuscript of Kafka's Das Schloss.

After completing a PhD on Nietzsche, he lectured in German Studies at various universities, leaving academia in 1996 when his first two novels, A White Merc with Fins and Rancid Aluminium, became bestsellers.

German culture called him back with Excavating Kafka, then Englanders and Huns, which was shortlisted for the Political Books of the Year awards in 2015.