Alan Duff was born in 1950 and lives with his wife and four children in Havelock North, New Zealand. He has published two precious novels, Once Were Warriors (also available in Vintage) and One Night Out Stealing; a novella, State Ward; and a work of non-fiction, Maori- The Crisis and the Challenge. Once Were Warriors won the PEN Best First Book for Fiction Award and was made into an internationally acclaimed film for which Alan Duff wrote the original screenplay.