"You cannot say anything about reality, if you are only describing the visible surface of things... Reality is hidden behind those things, and only in images are we able to talk about it.�"Along with Michael Ende, Hans Bemmann is considered to be one of the greats in the fantastic narrative field. His award-winning fairytale novel Stein und Flöte (Stone and Flute) is a classical long seller. Up to the present day it has been translated into seven languages and has been the subject of several academic studies. Apart from his literary work, Bemmann has written essays regarding children's and young adults' literature, as well as discourses on provincial Novel ceramics (Terra sigillata). Additionally, Bemmann, the cembalo player, has also been the editor of cembalo music from the baroque and the early classical period.

Hans Bemmann was born on 27 April 1922 in Groitzsch near Leipzig. The son of a Protestant parish priest, he spent his youth in Grimma/Saxony, Leipzig, Wiesbaden and Vienna. There, after taking his school-leaving exam, he began to study medicine, interrupted by labour service, military service and his war experience in Russia, where he served as a surgery assistant at the main field hospitals. In this way medicine turned into a nightmare for him, and after the war, he changed subjects, studying m ...

C.C. Bergius was born in Buehr, Westphalia. As a passionate pilot and writer, he was a flight instructor,  meteorological pilot and airline captain, before beginning his writing career at the end of the Second World War. His first book recounted the life of the Mongolian ruler Genghis Kahn (1951). Travels to Malaysia, Japan, China, Korea and Vietnam inspired him to write numerous novels which have been translated into 19 different languages and which have sold more ...

Will Berthold was born in Bamberg, he worked, after his release from a POW camp, as an assistant, a cub reporter and working student. He belonged to the editorial department of the SÜDDEUTSCHEN ZEITUNG from its inception. As a young reporter, he covered the Nürnberg trials. In addition to his journalistic work, Berthold began to write serials and novels. With his first books, Spy for Germany (1956) and Loyal unto Death. Viktory and Sinking of the &ldqu ...

With The Neverending Story, Momo and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver Michael Ende wrote himself into the hearts of his readers worldwide. His books have been translated into nearly 40 languages and more than 20 million copies have been sold across the globe. These days, Ende's likeable heroes can be encountered not only in his books, but also in cinema, theatre, musical and opera. Numerous international awards reflect the respect and affection in which his work is held.

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Marie Luise Fischer was born on October 28, 1922, in Düsseldorf as the daughter of a self-made businessman. She went to grammar school and then studied German language and literature, theatre arts and art history in Cologne, Munich and Prague. At the same time she worked as an editor for Prague Films. Because she couldn’t leave “the Golden city” soon enough, she was interned in 1945 and was forced to work as a field laborer for more than one and half y ...

Paul Frischauer was born in May 1898, in Vienna. After the young Frischauer finished his studies in history and political science at the University of Vienna, he tried out his writing talents as a journalist in his home town and in Berlin in the 1920’s, where he found an immediate connection to the richest and most animated intellectual life of his times. Long visits to the great western cities such as Paris, London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, followed.

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"Journalist and freelance writer", Gustav René Hocke, who was born in Brussels in 1908, used to answer quite proudly when asked about his profession. Indeed, for as long as he lived, Hocke navigated between these two poles. He worked as a foreign correspondent in Rome for several newspapers and magazines, while at the same time producing an extensive literary oeuvre, which is of great importance, especially for art and literature history.

Immediately after completing his PhD in Bonn in 1934, Hocke was accepted as a "trainee" with the Kölnischen Zeitung. During the Nazi regime, this newspaper was considered to be a "nest of passive resistance", as Luise Rinser put it. With her, Hocke maintained a friendship for over more than 40 years. In 1937 Hocke went to Italy for the first time. His love for this country was born and immediately manifested itself in the book The Vanished Face (Das Verschwundene Gesicht ...

„Only fantasy can capture the incomprehensible truths of human experience and make them comprehensible“, write Martin Hocke about his decision to write fantasy novels. Since the publication of his first Owls novel, Martin Hocke, born in Cologne in 1938 and shortly thereafter settled in England, has been recognised as a leading author in the area of fantasy literature.Originally an actor with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, he realised that only by writing, not acting, could he find his true voice.

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In 1964 Axel Springer was looking for a ‚Head’ who could creat a television magazine for him. Eduard Rhein was recommended. And Rhein became the ‘founder of HÖRZU’ and was, for nearly twenty years, its most successful editor. Under the pseudonym Hans-Ulrich Horster, he wrote 18 HÖRZU novels which were published in the millions.  On the side, he developed, among other things, the padding method (‘Füllschrift’) for long p ...

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Professor Dr. Wolfgang Leppmann was born in Berlin. He was a farmhand, soldier, train cook among other things, in Canada and the USA; got his doctorate in 1952 at Princeton and  became Professor for German language and literature at the University of  Oregon in 1954. The author, who is among the most internationally distinguished biographers of our times, lived finally between Oregon and Munich. Wolfgang Leppmann died December 3rd 2002 in Bergen (Rügen).

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Dr. Bernhard Horstmann, was born as the grandson of writer Ludwig Ganghofer, in Munich: School leaving certificate, and shortly thereafter drafted into the Luftwaffe. From January to April 1945, prisoner of the Gestapo; then from November 1947 in a Soviet prisoner of war camp. Law studies and years of service as a legal advisor. Since 1960 as a sideline job, since the mid 80s freelance and successful writing career. His novels have been published under the pseudonym >Stef ...

Sandra Paretti was born in Regensburg in 1935; received a D. Phil in German language and literature and music after studies in Munich, Paris and Rome.

For a while she was a part of the editorial team of the Munich ABENDZEITUNG. She broke onto the literary stage with her very first novel The Rose and the Sword (Rose und Schwert), the first volume of the great novel trilogy Beloved Caroline (Geliebte Caroline) comparable with Anne Golan’s ANGELIQUE novels.  For more than 15 years she has remained one of the best known and most successful German language novelists. She also achieved international success; her books ...

Leni Riefenstahl was born in Berlin in 1902. She studied painting and started her artistic career as a dancer. She became already so famous after her first dance hat Max Reinhardt engaged her for the »Deutsches Theater«. An injury of the knee put an end to her sensational career. After that, she became famous as an actress, a film director, a film producer and a film reporter. She became world-renowned as an actress in the films »Der heilige Berg« (19 ...

Curt Riess was born in Würzburg and grew up in Berlin. He studied in Berlin, Heidelberg, Paris and Munich, with, among others, the philosopher Gundolf. When Hitler came to power, he immigrated. After his return, he published scores of sensational books, for example biographies of Goebbels and Furtwängler and as an associate of General Clay – the contemporary history Berlin – Berlin. Riess was the most successful and versatile writer of the post-war peri ...

Susanne Scheibler, born in Stralsund, was for many years the editor-in-chief of a large and well-known German publishing house (Lübbe).  Before that she was active as a actor on German and Austrian stages. She wrote her first novel at 20. Many publications followed: novels, serials and short stories. She lived near Cologne. Her story - telling craft lay predominately in the large historical novel. “It appeals to me” she said once in an interview. &ldquo ...

Igor von Percha (pseudonym of Igor Šentjurc) was born in Slovenijgrade, Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia). During a trip to Austria in 1953, he immigrated to Germany. In 1954 he was recognized as a political refugee and found work as an editor at an illustrated magazine at Holtzbrinck Publishers in Stuttgart. At the same time he began to write his first novel The devil needs Love (Der Teufel braucht Liebe). From 1956 on, he lived with his family at the ...

Gaby von Schönthan was born in Vienna, the granddaughter of the famous comic poet Franz von Schönthan (The Robbery of the Sabines), attended and graduated from the Reinhardt-Seminar and then advanced through the Viennese theatre in Josephstadt to become a beloved and successful performer. During her marriage to the well-known writer and biographer Paul Frischauer, she began to write and achieved extraordinary success with her very first novel The King’s Mistr ...