Robert McCrum is an associate editor of the Observer. For nearly 20 years he was editor-in-chief of the publishers Faber & Faber. He was the literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2008, and has been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1990. Author of six novels, he has written a book on the Globish phenomenon - Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language (May 2010).