Brendan Graham was born in Co. Tipperary in 1945. He has published two novels, The Whitest Flower (London, HarperCollins, 1998); and The Element of Fire (Harper Collins, 2001). The Whitest Flower was a number 2 bestseller in Ireland, and is translated into German as Die Irische Nacht (Berlin, Rutten & Loening, 2000). Described as a 'documentary novel' of the Great Famine, it is currently a text at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A widely-known composer, he is former Chairman of IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation. He lives in the West of Ireland.