About the Author

Gregory O'Brien is a writer, teacher, painter, literary critic and art curator. He has written many books of poetry, fiction, essays and commentary. Recent publications include Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (2012), A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy (2011) and the multi-award-winning introductions to art Welcome to the South Seas and Back and Beyond. Greg won the $60,000 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Non-Fiction) in 2012, and in 2013 he became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.