Xavier Herbert was born in Geraldton, Western Australia. When he was twelve his family moved to Fremantle. He trained as a pharmacist and worked and lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin and then England, where he married Sarah (Sadie) Cohen, née Norden, and wrote his first novel Capricornia, which was published by P R Stephensen in 1938. Herbert returned to Australia in 1932 and in 1946 he settled with Sadie at Redlynch, near Cairns, Queensland. Herbert's other works include the autobiographical Disturbing element (1963), the novel Soldiers' women (1961), the novella Seven emus (1959) and the short story collection Larger than life (1963), as well as short stories and many articles expressing his strongly held opinions on various aspects of Australian life. His last work 'Poor Fellow My Country' was published in 1975 and won the Miles Franklin Award that year. Since his death two collections of Herbert's writings have been published: Xavier Herbert (1992), edited by Peter Pierce and Frances De Groen, which includes extracts from novels with other fiction, nonfiction and correspondence, and South of Capricornia (1990), edited by Russell McDougall, with reprints of stories written before 1934 and often published under pseudonyms. Xavier Herbert was awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Queensland and Newcastle.

Sarah ('Sadie') Norden was born on 3 December 1899 in Mile End, London, England. Her father was Charles Norden, a journeyman metal engraver, and her mother was Nancy Norden, née Rosenthal. Sadie married Woolf Cohen, a cabinetmaker, on 15 August 1926 at the East London Synagogue. The newlyweds moved to Australia and lived in Melbourne, then Sydney, for several years. In 1930, the Cohens encountered financial difficulties and their marriage broke down. Woolf moved to Auckland, New Zealand, to take up an offer of employment and Sadie returned to her parents in England. While on the journey home to England, Sadie met Albert Francis Xavier Herbert. She fell out of contact with Woolf and they later divorced. Sadie and Xavier moved to Australia together in 1932 and they settled at Redlynch, near Cairns, Queensland, in 1951. They married at the Cairns Court House on 26 June 1953. Sadie Herbert died on 29 September 1979.