Paul Kriwaczek was born in Vienna in 1937. At the age of two he fled Vienna and the Nazi threat with his parents, eventually arriving in England. After qualifying as a dental surgeon in 1962 and traveling extensively in Asia and Africa–including a two-year stint as the only European dentist in Kabul–he joined the BBC as a specialist in Central and South Asian affairs, and then BBC Television as a producer. He took up writing full-time in the 1990s. He lives in London.
