Born on the island of St. Kitts, at the age of 17 the author won a Caribbean-wide literary prize organised by the USA to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s 150th anniversary. He thought himself destined to be a writer, but a scholarship from Cambridge University made him opt instead for science. Ten years later, he began an engineering and information technology career in France, lasting until his retirement 35 years later. Returning to writing, he published his first memoir book in 2009, Caribbean Chemistry, on the identity problems of youth. He left Paris for Fontainebleau after the death of his wife, and dedicated this second memoir On the Run in Fontainebleau to navigating the perils of retirement.