The Joshua Files: Zero Moment

M G (Maria Guadalupe) Harris was born in Mexico City. When her parents split up, five-year-old MG moved to Frankfurt, Germany with her air-stewardess mother and younger sister. The unexpected departure of a young aunt left MG and her sister without a nanny. MG's mother moved the family to Manchester, England where she married a British cellist from the Halle Orchestra. Growing up as a Mancunian, MG based her formative years around 'Doctor Who', 'Blake's 7' and the fortunes of Manchester United.
 
As a teenager during regular visits with her father back in Mexico, MG became interested in Mayan archaeology. She made several trips with family to Mayan ruins in Yucatan and Chiapas. One such trip gave MG the seed of the idea for The Joshua Files.
 
MG won a scholarship to St Catherine's College at Oxford University to study biochemistry. Having planned on spending as much time as possible making student movies and pursuing a career in film or television, unexpectedly MG developed a fascination with molecular biology. Following a doctorate at St Cross College, Oxford, MG worked for several years in research laboratories and published several scientific papers from her work.
 
And then the internet beckoned... Like many of her contemporaries in the late '90s, MG abandoned academia for the excitement of setting up a company to service the 'new economy'.
 
In her twenties MG lost both parents to sudden, dramatic illness. By strange coincidence both parents, although separated by thousands of miles ever since their divorce, within six years of each other were taken ill in the same district of Mexico City, died unexpectedly at the same age (46) and are interred in the same church – in which MG's mother was once confirmed.
 
Whilst visiting family in Switzerland at the end of 2004, a ski accident left MG with a shattered tibia plateau. Forced to spend many weeks recuperating from surgery, MG decided to keep an old promise she'd made to herself one day to pursue a career as a novelist. Writing on a laptop next to her bed, MG began work on a techno-thriller which combined her two intellectual loves – archaeology and biology. From this initial manuscript came the idea for a story featuring a young boy searching for a lost codex of the Mayan.
 
In an attempt to cover up the fact that at heart she's a bit of a geek, MG spends as much time as possible going out to salsa clubs and mixing cocktails for her friends. MG adores anything written by her quartet of literary gurus; Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.
 
MG lives in Oxford with her husband and their two daughters.

Visit MG's website