C. A. Oliver was born in 1971 and spent his youth between Oxford and Bordeaux owing to the academic career of his father. From an early age, he was an avid reader of both the English and French canons, and it was J.R.R. Tolkien and Maurice Druon who would come to influence his writing above all others.

In his teenage years, Oliver and four friends began a tabletop role-playing game. Fifteen years later, after 3,500 hours of discussion, imagination and strategy, what began as a game had developed into an entire universe. As gamemaster, Oliver documented the gargantuan campaign’s progress. This fantasy world lay dormant for several years. Then, in 2014, after witnessing uncanny parallels with real-world politics, Oliver began to forge Songs of the Lost Islands, a fantasy series that draws heavily on the fifteen-year campaign. He started writing the first trilogy at Sandfield Road in Oxford, the very street on which Tolkien once lived. It was concluded at Rue Alexandre Dumas in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where Dumas composed The Three Musketeers. C. A. Oliver now lives between Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, having married a Brazilian academic. 

Songs of the Lost Islands has been above all inspired by what Oliver knows best: the depth and scope of global history and the fragile, incomprehensible beauty of his wife’s homeland.