Richard Aronowitz was born in 1970 to an English father and a German-Jewish mother and grew up in rural Gloucestershire, spending his early childhood on the edge of Slad in Laurie Lee country. He studied Modern Languages at Durham and Heidelberg universities and Art History at the Courtauld Institute in London. He was Head of Research, Europe for Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's London from 1997 to 2003, then joined the Ben Uri Gallery, the London Jewish Museum of Art, as Director & Senior Curator (2003-2004).

Richard began his writing career as a poet, publishing poems in "The Independent" (1998), "The Guardian" (2001) and many small-press magazines. He had a selection of ten poems included in the anthology ANVIL NEW POETS 3 from Anvil Press in 2001 and was a runner-up in the poetry section of the Bridport Prize in 1999.

FIVE AMBER BEADS is Richard's first novel and he is now writing his second, as well as short stories. He lives in London and Cambridge.

'Amber is freighted with the weight of time and history.'

FIVE AMBER BEADS is the story of two men whose lives are woven together as they seek to discover the truth about their pasts. Charley Bernstein works in the London art world and is tracing a family history erased by the Holocaust. In his possession is a diary written by a relative in a labour camp during the Third Reich, and Charley must follow the threads leading from its haunting pages to his own present.

In New York an old man is found lying semiconscious on the pavement. There are no witnesses to what has happened to him and he has no form of identification. When he wakes up in a hospital bed he finds he doesn't recognise the city or his own skin. In a state of total amnesia, he must embark on a struggle to regain his memory.

When fate brings these two men together they find themselves linked by a unique friendship. Their journey takes them from America to the Middle East and England in an enthralling and moving novel that addresses the nature of identity and belonging.