John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 and brought up in the West of Ireland. He was a graduate of University College, Dublin. He worked as a primary school teacher and held various academic posts at universities in Britain, Ireland and America. The Observer once hailed him as 'Ireland's greatest living novelist'. He was the author of six highly acclaimed novels and four collections of short stories, and was the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, the American-Irish Award, the Prix Etrangere Ecureuil, the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and, most recently, a South Bank Award for Literature. Amongst Women, which won both the GPA and the Irish Times Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1990 and made into a four-part BBC television series. His work has appeared in anthologies and has been translated into many languages. John McGahern died in March 2006, aged 71.