Damian Le Bas was born in 1985 into a large Gypsy family. He is a native speaker of the Romani language and read Theology at Oxford, where he graduated with the top First in his year.

Damian is widely published as a poet, journalist and dramatist. His debut travelogue, The Stopping Places, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2018.

Damian won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2016 and has been a midweek guest at the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre in Hebden Bridge.

The Stopping Places was the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award and was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.