Brian Moore was born on August 25, 1921, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in a large family with eight siblings. His father, James Bernard Moore, was a prominent surgeon and the first Catholic to sit on the senate of Queen’s University, while his mother, Eileen McFadden Moore, was a farmer’s daughter from County Donegal, was a nurse. Moore left Ireland during World War II and eventually settled in the United States after living in Canada for a time.
Moore began his writing career by working for the Montreal Gazette and producing potboilers under various pen names. However, it was not until the publication of "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" in 1955 that he began to gain recognition as a serious novelist. This marked the beginning of a prolific career in which Moore published nineteen subsequent novels, exploring a wide range of modes and styles. His works include "The Luck of Ginger Coffey," "An Answer from Limbo," "The Emperor of Ice Cream," "I Am Mary Dunne," "Catholics," "Black Robe," and "The Statement." Moore's novels often dealt with themes of identity, loyalty, and the search for meaning, and his writing was characterized by its psychological depth and emotional intensity.
Three of Moore's novels, "Lies of Silence," "The Colour of Blood," and "The Magician’s Wife," were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and "The Great Victorian Collection" won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Moore was also an accomplished screenwriter, adapting "The Luck of Ginger Coffey" for film in 1964 and working on the script for Alfred Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain." He spent the latter part of his life in Malibu, California, where he taught at UCLA for fifteen years. Moore was a true stateless wanderer, finding the larger world exciting and vast, and he remained a prolific and accomplished writer until his death.