Wiliam Owen Roberts is a Welsh language novelist and writer of plays for radio, television and theatre. He was born in Bangor, Gwynedd, and studied Welsh Literature and Theatre Studies at the University of Wales from 1978 to 1981. His first novel Bingo! was published in 1985, followed by Y Pla (1987), which won the Welsh Arts Council Prize for Literature in 1988, Pestilence appeared in Welsh in 1991 and has since been translated into multiple languages including English, Dutch and German. Petrograd (2008), set during the Russian Revolution, was reprinted within eight weeks and went on to win the Wales Book of the Year in 2009, as well as ITV Wales Readers Choice Award 2009. Wil's latest novel, a sequel to Petrograd called Paris, was published in 2013. The third novel in the trilogy will be published in 2016.