Lloyd Fernando (1926-2008)was born in Sri Lanka, and in 1938, at the age of twelve, he migrated to Singapore with his family. Fernando continued his schooling at St Patrick's, but the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1943 to 1945 interrupted his formal schooling, when it cost his father's life in one of the Japanese bombing raids. Following his father's death, Fernando started working as a trishaw rider, construction labourer and apprentice mechanic, to support him and the family.

After the war, Fernando completed his Cambridge School Certificate. In 1955, he entered the University of Singapore, graduating in 1959 with double Honours in English and Philosophy. In 1960, he joined the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur where he was, eventually, elevated to Professor and Head of English at the University of Malaya until his retirement in 1979.

Fernando started writing in the 1970s, rather late in life. Rejection of political violence, and a humanist approach towards life and society that sees every individual and community as equal, within and beyond a national boundary, recur as the central theme in both his novels - Scorpion Orchid (1976) and Green is the Colour (1993).