Gerard Donovan was born in Wexford, Ireland, and grew up in Galway. He graduated from NUI and the John Hopkins Writing Seminars. His debut novel Schopenhauer's Telescope (2003) was long-listed for the Man Booker prize, his third novel, Julius Winsome, currently available in over a dozen languages, is soon to be a major motion picture. His next publication was a collection of short stories set in Ireland, followed by a novel set in early twentieth-century Europe which he is currently writing.