Richard Gwyn grew up in Crickhowell, Breconshire. He spent the 1980s travelling, much of it recorded in his memoir, The Vagabond's Breakfast, which won a Wales Book of the Year award in 2012. In 2005 he achieved best-seller status with his first novel, The Colour of a Dog Running Away (Parthian, 2005), which has since been translated into eight languages. Richard has since written two other novels, including The Blue Tent, and is the author of four collections of poetry, the most recent of them being Stowaway: A Levantine Adventure (2018).