Darryl Kennedy, born in New Zealand, now an Australian citizen, has a Masters in English. After three years teaching, he set up in partnership The Everyman Book and Record shop in Nelson, New Zealand, a city landmark store for forty years. He traveled Europe three times, working on plantations in Israel - the Galilee in 1982, West Bank in 1992 - backgrounds for over a third of this novel. He is now retired on Queensland's Gold Coast.