Amiel Gurt was born in 1939 in Melbourne, Australia, and grew up there. He has been living in Israel since 1958. In 1962, he graduated in law from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, did his military service as a Machal volunteer and obtained his licence to practice law in 1966. In 1971, he joined the legal service of Bank Hapoalim where he remained until his retirement at the end of 2004. Over the years, he took up translating Hebrew literature into English as a hobby, his most notable success being the inclusion of two short stories by S.Y.Agnon, one of which served as the title for the book, in a collection of stories "A Book That Was Lost and Other Stories" published by Schocken Books in 1995. He lives in Herzliya with his Israeli born wife Saffra and has three children and three grandchildren.