Born near the Thames and London, to a mother of distant Norman descent and a father who could not be more English. After studying at Cambridge, he became a university professor in England and was later the first Briton elected to the Collège de France and the Académie française. He is a poet in both English and French, a prose writer, a philosopher, and, more recently, a theologian. A member of the Académie des Jeux Floraux, serving as Maître ès Jeux; an Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; and an honorary doctorate recipient from the University of Cambridge. A Knight of the Legion of Honor, a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, I was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.