J.G. Farrell was born in Liverpool in 1935 and spent a good deal of his life abroad, including periods in France and North America, and then settled in London where he wrote most of his novels. In April 1979 he went to live in County Cork where only four months later he was drowned in a fishing accident.
J. G. Farrell published three loosely associated novels about the end of empire, of which two - both winners of the Booker Prize - are included in this volume.
