Richard Zimler is a best-selling author. His books, which have earned him a 1994 National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and the 1998 Herodotus Award, have been published in many countries and translated into more than 20 languages. Zimler graduated from Herricks High School in suburban New York in 1973. In 1977, he earned a bachelor's degree in Comparative Religion from Duke University and five years later obtained a master's degree in Journalism from Stanford University. He was a Professor of Journalism at the University of Porto and College of Journalism for 16 years. Zimler has lived with Portuguese scientist Alexandre Quintanilha since 1978, when they met in San Francisco, California, They were married in August 2010, when same-sex marriage was legalized in Portugal. He has lived in Porto, Portugal since 1990. In 2002, he became a naturalized Portuguese citizen.

In April 2019, Zimler wrote an article for The Observer describing how his brother's death from HIV/AIDS at a young age affected his writing and, in particular, the themes of The Gospel According to Lazarus.