Louis Aston Marantz Simpson was born in 1923 in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, to Aston Simpson, a lawyer, and Rosalind Marantz Simpson, an Eastern European emigré and beauty queen. The Simpsons lived in the suburbs of Kingston and were quite well off. Simpson describes his family during that time as "well-to-do colonials" and solid members of the upper middle class. Rosalind Simpson was a major influence on her son's literary development, keeping the young Louis entertained with fairy tales and tales of her life in Poland. When he turned nine years old, Simpson enrolled in Munro College, an elite preparatory school. He began to write poems and stories in earnest in his early adolescence and even won an essay competition when he was fourteen. His article on the coronation of George VI was printed in the Daily Gleaner, a Kingston newspaper.

After graduating from Munro, Simpson...