Kevin O'Sullivan was born in 1938. He was educated at a boarding school in England and then at Cambridge and Yale Universities. His career was in business: he was chairman of a firm of consulting civil engineers working on roads, bridges, urban development, and low-income housing projects worldwide, but particularly in Southeast Asia. Separately he founded, with others, a computer software company in Cambridge which became a pioneer in computer-aided design. His publications include 'Two Studies of the Transafrican Highway' in Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is married to the writer Victoria Glendinning, and lives in London and Dorset.