Robert Irwin is a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature. He read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at SOAS. From 1972 he was a lecturer in Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews. He gave up the academic life in 1977, to write. Irwin is currently a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and the Middle East editor of the The Times Literary Supplement. His most recent book, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, was published in 2006.