Michael Anthony was born in the rural village of Mayaro, Trinidad in February 10, 1932. After attending the local primary schools he moved to the town of San Fernando where he enrolled at the Junior Technical School as a scholarship student. Following graduation in 1946 he was employed as a molder at an iron foundry in Pointe a Pierre. He emigrated to England in December 1954 where he held at various jobs while beginning his writing career.

Anthony left England in 1968 for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was employed at the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago and worked as an English teacher. Since his return to Trinidad in 1970 with his wife, Yvette and their four children, Anthony has been employed as a writer/researcher with the National Cultural Council as well as working as a local columnist, radio script writer and novelist.

Michael Anthony's literary career began as a poet with the publication of a number of his poems in the between 1952 and 1954. After his move to England, Anthony met fellow Trinidadian V.S. Naipaul who was then producer of the BBC's radio program and who encouraged Anthony to develop his prose. From 1955-1959 over thirty of Anthony's short stories where accepted for broadcast many of which appeared later in

During this period, Anthony met the British publisher Andre Deutsch who, on the strength of his short fiction, suggested that anthony write a novel. was published by Deutsch in 1963 to favorable critical and commercial responses. While working as a journalist for Reuter's, two additional novels were published by Deutsch in 1965 and 1967.

In 1968 Anthony left for Brazil with the intention of writing about that country. The student riots of 1969 provided much of the material for the resulting novel, (1976).

Due to the growing popularity of his book in secondary schools and as part of his duties at the National Cultural Council, Anthony was encouraged to write several histories of Trinidad for use in the schools. These include: and volumes one and two.

Anthony is best known as a writer about brief but critical events in the lives of children or young adults and his stories are usually told from their point of view. Anthony states: “As regards my aims as a writer, it is simply to tell interesting tales. I do not see myself as being particularly a writer of children's books; in other words I do not feel I am addressing young people especially, but when you look at it, I undoubtedly am.”

According to critic Daryl Cumber-Dance, “Because of Anthony's apparent lack of concern with the major racial, sociological, political, and economic issues that engage many Caribbean writers, several critics have tended to dismiss his work as insignificant.” However even his critics recognize Anthony's special ability, through a deceptively childlike narrative voice, to evoke striking scenes of time and place, and involve the reader in the universal concerns of his “interesting tales.”

For a critical introduction to Michael Anthony's work and a bibliography of critical sources see the entry in edited by Daryl Cumber-Dance, New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.