Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but having lived most of his adult life in Wales, Jerry Hunter is a scholar of Welsh literature and novelist who has been described as one of the major Welsh novelists of the 21st century. He works been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award on four occasions, winning once; and he is also a winner of the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. He is the author of six novels in Welsh and many works of non-fiction in both English and Welsh, but An Atheist Christian Gunslinger is his first novel in the language in which he was raised.