Lawrence Hill was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1957 to Daniel G. and Donna Mae Hill. His parents immigrated from Washington, DC, to Canada, where his father Daniel pursued a degree in sociology. Daniel and Donna were both social justice activists. Donna had begun to support human rights efforts in the United States around the time that she met Daniel, and Daniel, who also had a passion for human rights and social justice endeavors, became the director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Over the course of their marriage, Daniel and Donna continued to devote themselves to social and racial equality. Together they founded The Ontario Black History Society.

Hill was deeply influenced by his parents’ social justice activism. After earning a degree in economics from Quebec City’s Laval University, Hill began working as a journalist. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail and The Winnipeg Free Press, he covered social, economic, and labor issues, and these interests translated to his later works of fiction and nonfiction.

Hill is most known for his novel The Book of Negroes, originally published by HarperCollins in 2007. Due to the book’s controversial title, it was released as Someone Knows My Name in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere.