Born in Perth into a multi-lingual Levantine world from Egypt, of Greek and Italian extraction, George grew up in the working class suburb of Botany in Sydney.

He travelled the world and spent the early 1970s in the squats of London, and the early 1980s in the Lower East Side of New York City.

Along the way George has been awarded two Australia Council Writing Fellowships from the Literature Board and Visual Arts Board, as well as one from the NSW Ministry of Arts. Sparagmos (1989) was short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing. His previous novel Mortal Divide, (Brandl & Schlesinger) was awarded the NSW Premier’s Award, 1999.

George is currently the coordinator of Contemporary Art Programmes at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He writes widely about Australian art, and has a regular column in two major quarterlies: Art & Australia (Sydney), and Art AsiaPacific (Hong Kong/New York).