Urs Widmer

Urs Widmer, born in Basel in 1938, studied German, Romance languages and history in Basel, Montpellier, and Paris. He then worked as a publishing editor at Walter Verlag, Olten, and at Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt. In 1968, he became an author himself,  with his story Alois. In 1969, he founded together with other editors in Frankfurt the Verlag der Autoren. For his extensive work he received several accolades, including the Heimito von Doderer Literature Prize (1998) and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize of the City of Bad Homburg (2007). Urs Widmer died in Zurich in 2014.