GERALD MURNANE was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1939. He spent part of his childhood in country districts in the State of Victoria but returned to Melbourne in 1949 and has never since left. During his working life he was at various times an editor and a teacher, and at his retirement he was senior lecturer in fiction writing at Deakin University. He is the author of seven highly praised books of fiction, and in 1999 he received the prestigious Patrick White Literary Award.