Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939 and continues to live in Yorkshire. He left school at 15 and worked in a variety of jobs, including primary school teaching, before becoming a full-time writer. His widely acclaimed novels often reflect his political passions, such as Brother in the Land , which is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. He has won the Red House Children's Book Prize several times and in 1993 he won the prestigious Carnegie Medal for Stone Cold , a young adult novel about homelessness.