Orlando initially believed that his biological father was his mother's husband, the Jewish South African-born anti-Apartheid novelist Harry Saul Bloom (1913-81), who died when Bloom was four years old.
Bloom's mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (née Copeland), was born in Calcutta, India, the daughter of Francis John Copeland, a physician and surgeon, and Betty Constance Josephine (née Walker).