Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. Born on August 26, 1904, he is best known for works such as Goodbye to Berlin (1939), which inspired the musical Cabaret (1966), A Single Man (1964), which was adapted into a film directed by Tom Ford in 2009, and Christopher and His Kind (1976), a memoir that connected him with the Gay Liberation movement.

Isherwood's career also included collaborations with W.H. Auden, resulting in plays like The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). His first autobiography, Lions and Shadows, recounts his early life, including his departure from Cambridge University after submitting joke answers on his second-year exams. He briefly attended medical school before publishing his first novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932).