Andrew Dalby

Andrew Dalby is a contributor to Wikipedia and an administrator on Vicipaedia, its slightly less-known Latin equivalent. He is a writer of reference books (Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, 2003; Dictionary of Languages, 1998; A Guide to World Language Dictionaries, 1998) and is known for writings on languages and food history. Recent books include Language in Danger (2002) on the disastrous loss of linguistic diversity, Flavours of Byzantium (2003) on the tastes and aromas of the Byzantine Empire, Rediscovering Homer (2006), a new approach to the earliest Greek poetry; also Bacchus (2003) and Venus (2005), light-hearted biographies of two of the less conventional classical gods. Siren Feasts (1996), a history of food and gastronomy in Greece, won a Runciman Award. Dangerous Tastes (2000), on the origins of the world spice trade, was a Guild of Food Writers Book of the Year. His books have been translated into ten languages: he sells particularly well in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, but has no idea why.

The World and Wikipedia is his first book with Siduri Books.

He studied classics and linguistics at Cambridge. An escaped librarian, he lives in France, where he writes, grows fruit and makes cider.