Stephen Norman

Stephen Norman always wanted to be a storyteller but life got in the way until NOW. Brought up in Uganda and Kenya by missionary parents, then educated in England. Studied 4 years at Stanford and got drawn into the first Silicon Valley boom. He spend 20 years as an IT guy in trading banks all round the globe: Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Paris, finally New York. On 11 Sept 2001 he was in a building next door to World Trade North, a catastrophe which spurred his personal interest in the Middle East and politics - this comes out in his debut novel, Trading Down, a cybercrime thriller.

His new personal obsession is cycling, riding and watching the greats. Stephen spent some time in Colombia in 2018 and 2019 esearching an illustrated history of the REAL Tour: the Vuelta a Colombia, the toughest road race on the planet with climbs compared to which the Alpe d'Huez is a walk in the park! During his visits, he came across the photography of Horacio Gil Ochoa, a Medellin photographer who spent 40 years capturing the drama of Colombian racing.

The result is THE BIG CLIMB, a richly illustrated,168 page full colour book which traces the history of Colombian cycling from the 1950s to the present day. It explains how the Vuelta a Colombia, a punishing 3 week race across the Andes, came to grip the psyche of the Colombian nation and create some of the finest cyclists the world has yet seen. The book features 134 photographs by Horacio Gil Ochoa, as well as numerous maps and diagrams.

In lockdown in England, Stephen is working on a sequel to Trading Down, working title Trading Crypto. This one's a thriller about cryptocurrencies and AI, greed and violent death!