Our Talent

RALPH LISTER is a native-British, multiple Audie Award winner/finalist and Earphones Award winner, and over 11 years has narrated more than 400 single-voice and multi-cast audiobooks.

For non-fiction audiobooks (political commentary, biography, history, religion, and self-help), Ralph is aided by a life-long personal interest in history and current affairs, a facility with many modern languages, and 15 years of overseas business experience. As an equally in-demand narrator of fiction titles, his exhilarating Audie-winning and Audie-nominated work is filled with the voices of characters and creatures of all ages and accents. Narrations include a new release of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Stories (for Random House Audio), and two of James Clavell’s renowned Asian saga titles, Shōgun and Noble House (both for Blackstone Publishing).

Known for on-screen performances in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Setup, and Oz: the Great and Powerful, as well as for numerous stage and independent film productions. Studied abroad in Germany, lived and worked in Spain (3 years), in Hong Kong (10 years), and in both China and the Philippines (1 year in each). Ralph’s global travels include surviving a military coup in Turkey in 1980, witnessing civil war killings in El Salvador in 1986, and going off the beaten track in most countries of Europe, the Middle East, SE Asia, and the Americas. When not busy with family life with his Russian wife and young son, discovering red wine varietals from Spain is presently an on-going passion.

Two-time Eclipse Award Winner for Best Actor (film), and Grand Award for Best Actor (stage).

Fluent in Spanish, competent in French and German, and familiar with Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Latin, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin.

Additional personal information:

I am constantly listening to and learning about a huge diversity of subjects via talk radio and online publications (BBC World Service and NPR in particular). From age 7, when my father was first posted overseas with UK overseas intelligence, I was educated in liberal-arts boarding schools in southern England. By the age of 18, I had lived and traveled abroad more than most people will do in a lifetime. I hitch-hiked from London to Rome when I was 16, moved for the first time to America in 1979, and later lived in Hong Kong working in advertising, in media ownership, and as a recording studio manager. For one year, I sold office stationary products throughout the interior of China, and for a further year managed a transshipment center in the ex-US naval base of Subic Bay in the Philippines (and which ostensibly smuggled cigarettes into southern China).

These varied non-artistic careers have led me into worlds which I would never have imagined ever approaching or enjoying. Working for a full year in 1985 on pirate radio ship, The Voice of Peace, anchored off the coast of Israel, is one such example.

I find non-fiction writing to be as stimulating as fiction, and a considerable amount of my audiobook output over the past 10 years has been about cultural, political, historical, scientific, medical, or religious affairs as well as memoirs and biographies.

I've also directed 11 audiobooks, and have self-produced four titles for writer-fans. I get a buzz from working with other audiobook professionals, and have many friends in the audiobook world since attending my first audiobook conference in 2012.

I hold both British and US passports, and Spanish residency post-Brexit.