Allan Baillie was born in Scotland in 1943, but came to Australia when seven. He married to a Chinese-Australian and they have a daughter and son. He was a journalist, but became a full-time author, chasing books in Cambodia, China, Arnhem Land and Indonesia. The books have been published in 13 countries with various awards. His first break was winning the Kathleen Fidler Award for Adrift in 1982. Three books were short-listed in the Guardian Award: Riverman, Little Brother, a Cambodian boy in the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge’s Kampuchea, and China Coin, about a Chinese-Australian girl caught up in the massacre of Tiananmen.