Utta Danella

With 37 novels and about 70 million copies sold, Utta Danella has become the most successful post-war female author in the German language. Her female and male readers alike appreciate that most of her novels have an accurate historical background  which does only serves as a colourful setting.

Born and raised in Berlin, she is enthusiastic about the theatre, opera and music. While attending school, she took acting, dance and singing lessons. At the age of 14, she secretly wrote her first novel. After taking her school-leaving examinations, she began writing articles for various publications as well as for radio broadcast.  She then moved to Munich, where she published her first novel All Stars From Heaven in 1956, after it had been edited to half of its original 1000 pages! Even though this book was only moderately successful, her publisher urged her to continue with her literary work. Finally, with her fourth novel Stella Termorgen came her breakthrough. The number of copies sold quickly rose to 100,000. From then on one best-seller followed another. In November 1998 Roman Herzog, then president of the Federal Republic, awarded her with the >Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland< (equivalent to the British "Most Noble Order of the Garter ›Hochedler Orden vom Hosenbande"). In June 2000, BAVARIA FILM, one of Germany's major film production, acquired the movie rights to all of Utta Danella’s novels and to her complete works.