Christopher Koch is of Irish, English and German ancestry. For a good deal of his life he was a broadcasting producer, working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney. He has lived and worked in London and elsewhere overseas. He has been a full-time writer since 1972, winning international praise and a number of awards for his five previous novels - many of which are translated in a number of European countries. In 1995, Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature.