Michael Koehlmeier was born in the Vorarlberg region of Austria in 1949. In addition to novels, he has written radio plays, essays and song texts in Vorarlberg dialect for the band Schellinski. He is married to the writer Monika Helfer and lives in Hohenems, Ausatria. The Koehlmeier's daughter Paula, herself an aspiring writer, died in a hiking accident in 2003. David Dollenmayer is a literary translator and emeritus Professor of german at the Worcester Polytehnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is recipient of the 2008 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for his translation of Childhood by Moses Rosenkranz, and the 2010 Translation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York for Idell with Drawning Dog by Michael Koehlmeier. He lives in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.