Benjamin Tammuz was born in Russia in 1919 and immigrated to Palestine with his family at the age of five. He studied Law and Economics in Tel Aviv and later attended the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied Art History. Tammuz was a sculptor as well as a diplomat and a writer, and was for many years the literary editor of the Ha’aretz newspaper. His numerous novels and short stories have been widely translated from the Hebrew and have received several literary prizes.

Minotaur was selected Book of the Year in England in 1981. Benjamin Tammuz died in 1989.