Andrew McGahan was born in Dalby, Queensland, and died in Victoria in 2019 at the age of fifty-two.

His debut novel, Praise (1992), won the 1991 Australia/Vogel Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Prize for the best first book in its region. His second novel, 1988 (1995), was a sequel to the first, while his third, Last Drinks (2000), was nominated for several awards, including The Age Book of the Year and the Courier-Mail Book of the Year, and won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing.

White World was published in 2004 and won the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Southeast Asia and South Pacific Region (Fiction), and the Courier-Mail Book of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Award.

McGahan's fifth novel, Underground, was published in 2006 and won the Fiction category of the Queensland Premier's Literary Award and the Aurealis Award. Wonders of a Godless World, published in 2009, made waves and won the Aurealis Award. His last novel, The Rich Man's House, was published in 2019.

Among McGahan's award-winning texts are also theatre plays and the screenplay of his novel Praise.