Iain Bamforth grew up in Glasgow and graduated from its medical school. He has pursued a peripatetic career as a hospital doctor, general practitioner, translator, lecturer in comparative literature, and latterly public health consultant in several developing countries, principally in Asia. His four books of poetry were joined by a fifth, The Crossing Fee, in 2013. His prose includes The Body in the Library (Verso, 2003), an account of modern medicine as told through literature; and The Good European (Carcanet, 2006), a collection of writings on ideas and literature in European history.