Trap (1966) won the Miles Franklin Literary Award when it was published. Its comic and satiric elements and use of several narrative voices provide revealing interpretations of cross-cultural relations, bureaucracy and politics in Australia. Peter Mathers was born in England in 1931 and came to Australia with his family as a child. From 1964 and 1967 he worked in Britain and Europe as a researcher. His first writing appeared in the early 1960s, with his novels being published in the 1960s and 1970s.