M. J. Hyland was born in London to Irish parents in 1968 and spent her early childhood in Dublin. She studied English and Law at the University of Melbourne, Australia and worked as a lawyer for several years. Her first novel, How the Light Gets In (2003) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Age Book of the Year, and made Hyland joint winner of the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Best Young Australian Novelist Award.

Carry Me Down (2006) was the winner of the Encore Prize and the Hawthornden Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2006); while Hyland’s third novel This Is How was longlisted for the Orange and IMPAC literary awards.

M. J. Hyland lives in Manchester, England, where she teaches in the Centre for New Writing at Manchester University.