Phillip Mann (1942 - 2022) Phillip Mann was born in Yorkshire in 1942. he studied English and Drama at Manchester University and later in California. He worked for the New China News Agency in Beijing for two years, but since 1969 has lived principally in New Zealand, where he held the position of Professor of Drama at Victoria University, Wellington, until he retired in 1998. His first novel, The Eye of the Queen was published in 1982 and was followed by seven others including the 'Story of the Gardener' and 'A Land Fit for Heroes' sequences. He has had many plays and stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand, which also adapted his Gardener novels Master of Paxwax and Fall of the Families. He died in September 2022.