The author Robert Gallagher was born in England in 1951. He studied engineering at Birmingham, and town planning at Sheffield. He first came to Bangladesh in 1978, to teach at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Since then, all, his work has been connected with Bangladesh, where he has lived for about 10 years. He has worked on a number of planning projects, and speaks Bangla. He is presently living in the U.K. with his wife and two daughters.