Alan Saunders (4)

(22 July 1954 – 15 June 2012) was a prominent British philosopher, food writer, novelist and radio broadcaster in Australia. Saunders was born in London and raised in Harringay, North London. His father, Sydney Saunders, was a taxi driver and his mother, Edith, was a secretary in a school. Saunders' interest in gastronomy initially came about through childhood holidays abroad with his parents, who were adventurous eaters. He gained a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at the University of Leicester and a Bachelor of Science from the London School of Economics, and was a Frances A. Yates Research Fellow at the Warburg Institute, University of London. In 1992, he was one of the first recipients of Australia’s Pascall Prize for Critical Writing and Broadcasting, and, in 2007, was awarded the Special Media Prize by the Australasian Association of Philosophy. He gained his PhD from the Australian National University, with a dissertation on the 18th-century English philosopher Joseph Priestley.