About Roman

I am a writer and teacher on creative thinking about the art of living and social change.

I am a founding faculty member of The School of Life, a cultural enterprise based in central London that offers instruction and inspiration on the art of living. I co-designed and teach The School’s courses on Work, Politics and Love. I am their resident expert on Empathy, and was named  by The Observer as one of Britain’s leading lifestyle thinkers for 2010.

For several years I was Project Director at The Oxford Muse, the foundation established by the avant-garde thinker and historian Theodore Zeldin to stimulate courage and invention in personal, professional and cultural life. I studied at the universities of Oxford, London and Essex, where I gained my PhD, and have done human rights work in Central America.

My great passion is empathy, and I have been an advisor on empathy development and social change for Oxfam, the United Nations and community organisations. I have just written a new book on empathy that should be out later this year. I am also the author of The First Beautiful Game and am currently writing a cultural history of the art of living, to be published by Profile Books. Apart from being a fanatical real tennis player, my ambition is to found the world’s first empathy museum.

Download a free copy of my essay Empathy and the Art of Living.

‘Empathy is imaginatively and practically explored in Empathy and the Art of Living, an essay by the ever thoughtful and surprising Roman Krznaric.’ – Mark Vernon, author of The Philosophy of Friendship

For further details of my writings on empathy and other subjects please see www.romankrznaric.com.