Harry Ricketts was born in London in 1950 and lived in England, Malaysia and Hong Kong, before moving to New Zealand in 1981. His twenty published works include How to Catch a Cricket Match, The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling, How to Live Elsewhere, and eight collections of poems. He teaches creative non-fiction and English at the Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, Wellington, co-edits the review-journal New Zealand Books, and is a regular book reviewer for Radio New Zealand.