Mark Behr was born in Tanzania in 1963, and moved as a child to South Africa. He was educated in South Africa, Norway, and the United States. The Smell of Apples won South Africa's biggest literary prize, the M-Net Award, The Eugene Marais Award, and the CNA Debut Literary Award. It also received the Betty Trask Award for the best first novel published in the United Kingdom, and was shortlisted for both the Steinbeck and Guardian Literary Awards.