Gerhard Roth was recognized as a literary genius within the avant-garde group of Forum Stadtpark artists in Graz, the capital of the southeastern Austrian province of Styria, as soon as his first book was published in 1972. He was born in Graz on 24 June 1942, one of three sons of a physician from Transylvania; his mother came from a working-class background. Instead of completing his medical studies at the University of Graz, Roth joined the Graz Center for Statistics in 1966 and later became its manager. He began to write in 1967. Since 1978 he has been a free-lance writer, living in Graz and in a Styrian village. He is divorced and the father of two daughters and a son. He received the prize of the Southwestern Broadcasting System in 1978, a fellowship from the City of Hamburg in 1979, and the Alfred Döblin Prize in 1983.

Roth's first published book was die autobiographie...