SELWYN PRITCHARD was born in 1933, the third son of a Welsh carpenter. He left school at 16, was conscripted and served five years as a subaltern in The Royal Welch Fusiliers in Jamaica, Guyana, Dortmund and Berlin. He subsequently became a teacher before getting into Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and graduating at the age of 35. He then taught philosophy for some years before moving to the Orkney Islands with his wife and three children.

In 1980 they emigrated to New Zealand, then Australia. His last post was as professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Jinan University in Guanghou, People's Republic of China. He has four grandchildren and with his wife lives on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne.

He began to write poetry on leaving the United Kingdom. Homage to Colonel Rainborough was published by the Omanawa Press in 1984; Being Determined by The Cornford Press, Launceston, Tasmania, 1990; Stirring Stuff, 99 poems, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, was launched at the Poetry Society rooms in Covent Garden in 1993; Lunar Frost, translations from the Tang and Song dynasties, Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney, 2000; Letters & Characters, 2001, The Cornford Press. Two further collections are in circulation. He was awarded the Rome residency by the Literature Board of the Australia Council in 1999.