Robert MacLean was born in Toronto. He took degrees at York, the University of Toronto and McGill, published a book of essays, Narcissus and the Voyeur, and taught film and literature at Canadian universities. When he could no longer stand the cold he moved to Greece to write.

His comic novel Foreign Matter got ecstatic reviews: a man travels with a woman who pays, but her nine-year-old daughter is smarter than he is and makes him her yoyo. The New York Times spotted his roots in the superb P.G. Wodehouse and the little girl as his Jeeves.

In his second novel, Home from the Party, an American-educated Greek detective is shunned by his colleagues until a murder happens among foreigners on Hydra and they need an investigator who speaks English. It was sweetly reviewed too.

He has published poems, stories and articles in England and America. In fact if you’re not careful he’ll do a comic poetry reading on the spot; he’s done several around Greece and in Los Angeles. His story "The Kiss" won The European’s short fiction prize, and his funeral-parlor farce Mortal Coil was short-listed in the London Observer’s Comic Novel Contest.

Mortal Coil will be (available to download as an ebook soon), or read it in serial form, a new chapter each month.

The play based on that book “created quite a sensation,” to quote the producer, when it was performed at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. In September 1999 it was published by Baker’s Plays in Boston, along with Charm, a metaphysical comedy about the marital blahs. And in New York last spring four of his one-acts had public readings at the Lincoln Square Studio Theatre.

He also writes screenplays. Options on these have enabled him to live as Byronically as he dares in Mediterranean countries. Currently he’s co-writing a Greek miniseries, One-Pirate Show starring Sir Peter Ustinov, and teaching poetry at the American College in Athens. With the other hand he's working on a series of comic novels and on making a film of Mortal Coil.