Brian Moore was born in Belfast in 1921 and was educated there at St Malachy's College. He served with the British Ministry of War Transport during the latter part of the Second World War in North Africa, Italy and France. After the war he worked for the United Nations in Europe before emigrating to Canada in 1948, where he became a journalist and adopted Canadian citizenship. He spent some time in New York before moving to California, where he now lives and works. Five of his novels have been made into films: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Catholics, Cold Heaven and, most recently, Black Robe.

Brian Moore won the Authors' Club First Novel Award for The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, the W. H. Smith Literary Award for Catholics, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Great Victorian Collection, and the Sunday Express Book of the Year Prize for The Colour of Blood. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times with The Doctor's Wife, The Colour of Blood and Lies of Silence.