Rodney Bolt was born in South Africa. He studied at Rhodes University, where contact with Athol Fugard sparked his interest in theatre. Before leaving the country, he worked on anti-apartheid drama. His play Gandhi: Act Too won the 1980 Durban Critic Circles's Play of the Year award. For most of his adult life he has wandered in semi-exile through Europe, living in Greece, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1980, he won a scholarship to Cambridge and read English at Corpus Christi. He has run a pub theatre and is now a travel writer and novelist. He has twice won Travel Writer of the Year.