Roma Tearne fled Sri Lanka at the age of ten, travelling to Britain, where she has spent most of her life. She gained her Master's degree at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, and was Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She is currently the holder of an Arts and Humanities Research Council fellowship in the visual arts. Her first novel, "Mosquito", was published in 2007 and her next novel, `Brixton Beach', is published in 2009. She lives and works in Oxford.