Bernard Pomerance was born in Brooklyn in 1940. He is a very private man and there is very little information about his parents, his childhood, his early education, or his personal life.

Pomerance was a student at the University of Chicago, but then moved to London when he was in his early thirties. After moving to England, he began working with small, innovative theatre groups. With director Roland Rees, he founded the Foco Novo theatre group, which produced Pomerance's early plays.

Pomerance's reputation as a playwright is based on one play, The Elephant Man, first performed in 1979 and then made into a successful Hollywood film in 1980. The play initially opened in London at the Hampstead Theatre before moving to New York and eventually opening on Broadway.

After writing two more plays, Quantrill in Lawrence (1980) and Melons (1985), he finally published his first novel, We Need to Dream All...